Renew my listing on the Do Not Call Registry, please

I was driving back from New York on Sunday when I heard the President say "If somebody from al-Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why." I thought I was hallucinating. I had to look online later to make sure I hadn't missed the statement.

This isn't about bashing W, convenient as that could be. This is about something a little more subtle. I suspect the President was speaking off the cuff, which is unlike him. I suspect his usual handlers were on vacation. He normally speaks like a sales person, giving the public a compelling reason to buy. On Sunday he gave us something closer to his own reasoning. There is very little WIIFM (what's in it for me) in "we'd like to know why".

I'm not even hear to argue about the legality of these actions. Afterall, there are enough judges friendly to the cause for him to get the subpoenas and permission to tap legally that any Patriot-Act-based approaches may be redundant. I'm not saying that's great news: I'm just assuming the White House can do what it wants because it's already been doing it.

I'm only worried that this assumes no one would usually get a call from Al-Qaeda. ( Let's poke at this assumption, shall we? )