Bush Defends Domestic Spying

Also Calls For Renewal Of Patriot Act At Year-End Press Conference

(CBS/AP) 
Democrats were skeptical of the president's explanations.

"Where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and the phones of American citizens without any court oversight?" Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mi., said

Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin called for congressional hearings.

"The president does not have a leg to stand on legally with regard to this program," Feingold said. "He is the president, not a king."

Despite the weighty issues Mr. Bush addressed, the president bantered with reporters at times.

"So many questions, so little time," said CBS News chief White House correspondent John Roberts. The president had a ready retort: "Ask a short question," he said.

Mr. Bush was asked during the news conference to name his top priorities for the coming year. He mentioned keeping the U.S. economy growing and helping recovery efforts along the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast.

And he responded to criticism of his record on racial issues, exacerbated by the images of thousands of blacks stranded in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"One of the most hurtful things I can hear is, you know, Bush doesn't care about African-Americans," he said. "First of all, it's not true. And secondly, I believe that obviously, I've got to do a better job of communicating, I guess, to certain folks." He urged Congress to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act and promised to sign it.

Mr. Bush also said he looks forward to an up-or-down vote next month on Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.

But the session was dominated by national security issues – specifically the newly disclosed spying program by the NSA.

Mr. Bush emphasized that only international calls were monitored without court order those originating in the United States or those placed from overseas to individuals living in this country.

He stressed that calls placed and received within the United States would be monitored as has long been the case, after an order is granted by a secret court under the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

One of the principal provisions of the Patriot Act permitted the government to gain warrants in cases involving investigations into suspected terrorists in the United States – an expansion of powers previously limited to intelligence cases.

The news conference, which ran just shy of an hour, was the latest in a series of events – appearances outside Washington, meetings with members of Congress and an Oval Office address on Sunday night - in which the president has sought to quell criticism of the war in Iraq and reverse his months-long slide in the polls.

It was Mr. Bush's first full-fledged news conference since October and his ninth of the year.