CAPITOL HILL—Democrats say President Bush has taken "his stubborn approach too far" on the issue of government eavesdropping.
In his party's weekly radio address, Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse says Bush is "whipping up false fears, and creating artificial confrontation" over the issue.
Bush is chiding Congress for letting a law expire tonight that would make it easier for the government to intercept foreign communications passing through the U.S. He says failure to act on it will make it harder to track terrorist and could make America vulnerable to an attack.
But Whitehouse says if the law expires and intelligence is lost, it would be Bush's fault. He says the president rejected a short extension of the law that would have given Congress time to work on it.
Whitehouse says the president himself has said there's "no excuse" for letting the law expire, but that he has chosen political gamesmanship in debating the issue.
