Well...

People are saying that the administration comparing its wiretapping actions to Clinton's is a smear. I don't know. Don't get me wrong, Bush is completely wrong here. FISA is probably too lenient when it comes to this stuff, and he still couldn't comply with it. Still, while Clinton's transgression was somewhat different, it wasn't completely different. Bush did what was explicitly illegal, Clinton did what wasn't addressed in the law. Unless we amended the Constitution in some way that I'm not aware of, what Clinton did was still illegal, as citizens can do things that aren't prohibited and the government needs permission to do things.