White House turning the screws on Senate Republicans

Georgia10 at DailyKos reports the depressing news that it seems the White House has put the screws to Senate Republicans on the Intelligence Committee and convinced them to vote against holding an inquiry into the domestic surveillance program. Further, they plan to introduce legislation explicitly excepting this program from the FISA statute, thus making it legal for the President to pursue it. If you can keep your stomach from retching, read the whole thing.

Recall that, if you look closely at the Gonzales' testimony, it appears there is more than one domestic spying program that is illegal. Hence, the new legislation exempting the NSA program may not be enough to put the Prez back on legal territory. I doubt that will matter much to him though.

Update: I see the Washington Post has more on this.