Respect my authority!

The president demands Congress remain in session to pass an update to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) so his legal wiretapping activities will be legal again:

"So far the Democrats in Congress have not drafted a bill I can sign," Mr. Bush said at FBI headquarters, where he was meeting with counterterror and homeland security officials. "We've worked hard and in good faith with the Democrats to find a solution, but we are not going to put our national security at risk. Time is short."

The president said lawmakers cannot leave for their August recess this weekend as planned unless they "pass a bill that will give our intelligence community the tools they need to protect the United States."

Or the terrorists win, we know.

Bush's demand echoes his insistence that Congress pass the Military Commissions Act last September. (The act undermined habeas corpus, in case you missed that.) "The need for this legislation is urgent," Bush said last September. The Congress passed the president's urgently needed bill on September 29.

While he was out fundraising and campaigning, the action-figure president let the Military Commissions bill sit urgently on his desk for two and a half weeks before signing it on October 17.

How many times will Democrats in Congress let this guy play them?