On no other issue are Democrats more out of touch with reality than the FISA legislation that will expire in February. The temporary bill, which gives the intelligence community tools needed to combat terrorists, passed the Senate and House in August, but now faces the prospect of being watered down by liberals.

The House Judiciary Committee today voted 20-14 for a FISA bill that would take the country backward. Republican attempts to strengthen the bill seem futile. With the American Civil Liberties Union and liberal bloggers demanding a swift reversal from the votes in August, Democrats seem content to oblige.

Bush deserves credit for fighting back. Today at the White House he threatened to veto the Democrats’ bill and encouraged Congress to make permanent the legislation that passed in August.

Unfortunately, when Congress passed the Protect America Act they set its provisions to expire in February. The problem is the threat to America is not going to expire in February. So Congress must make a choice: Will they keep the intelligence gap closed by making this law permanent? Or will they limit our ability to collect this intelligence and keep us safe, staying a step ahead of the terrorists who want to attack us?

The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, backed up Bush’s assessment with a stinging rebuke of the Democrats’ bill.

Democrats have focused more on lawyering up terrorist surveillance rather than fixing the actual problem. Now committee Democrats have passed a bill with several fatal flaws that threaten to cripple our intelligence gathering capabilities and puts our nation and troops at riskand all because they chose to ram through a bill and disregarded Republican input.

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