New York Times Scolds Obama While Conservatives Shrug: What's Going On?

Bad boy, tsk tsk. Thus saith the Grey Lady. Some excerpts: 

The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it.

Mr. Obama clearly had no intention of revealing this eavesdropping, just as he would not have acknowledged the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, had it not been reported in the press. Even then, it took him more than a year and a half to acknowledge the killing, and he is still keeping secret the protocol by which he makes such decisions. 

We are not questioning the legality under the Patriot Act of the court order disclosed by The Guardian. But we strongly object to using that power in this manner. It is the very sort of thing against which Mr. Obama once railed, when he said in 2007 that the Bush administration’s surveillance policy “puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.”  

All of this in response to the scoop by The Guardian (would it be asking too much for the American media to get a scoop about the Obama administration?) in which we (Americans) learn that "the National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April." 

The interesting thing about this latest scandal is that conservatives don't seem too worked up about it. I listened to Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, and Hugh Hewitt basically say so what? I read in National Review Online that this is basically no big deal. Andrew McCarthy explains that "telephone record information (e.g., the numbers dialed and duration of calls) is not and has never been protected by the Fourth Amendment." So McCarthy makes a distinction between the records (numbers called, etc.) and the content of the discussion (not recorded, no wire-tapping, etc). 

I don't know. I'm not sure I'm convinced. I listened to Jake Tapper interview Glenn Greenwald, who was the reporter from The Guardian who wrote the story, and if you listen to what Greenwald is saying, it's pretty alarming. You can listen to the interview here. I think what's bothering me is the fact that this isn't a selective use of the Patriot Act. I mean, if the administration had reason to believe that someone--a person who was a Verizon subscriber--was a suspected terrorist, then yes, I agree, the Patriot Act would give the administration authority and power to examine his or her phone records. But to cast this huge, wide net--all Verizon subscribers, including my sister, my daughter, etc.? And probably (we'll soon hear) AT&T customers (including yours truly)? 

Really, Mr. Obama? You? You who criticized President Bush when he used the same authority in the aftermath of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks?