Condolences.

George Bush started off the new year the way he ended the old one, lying about the NSA spying program. Speaking to wounded soldiers at the Brooke Army Medical Center, Bush couldn't even explain the NSA program properly without hedging about it, saying more than once, according to The New York Times, that the eavesdropping was "limited to calls from outside the United States to calls within the United States."

Afterward, his aides had to come to his rescue and say that he misspoke, that the NSA in fact is also eavesdropping on calls originating from the United States.

As he is wont to do, Bush invoked 9/11 several times. "After that day, I vowed to use all the resources at my disposal, within the law, to protect the American people," he said.

It's that little clause, "within the law," that's at issue here.

Bush appears to agree with Nixon, who said, "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal."

This month, we explore the NSA scandal in our Comment, and Ruth Conniff and Molly Ivins discuss it in their columns, as well. It's an issue of enormous weight.

Senator William Proxmire died on December 15. Proxmire, who served in the U.S. Senate for thirty-two years, was a familiar byline in this magazine.

He made his appearance in October 1957, on the occasion of his upset victory when he became the first Democrat to represent Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate in a quarter of a century. Proxmire took Joe McCarthy's old seat after the disgraced Senator died. In his essay entitled "Seeds of Revolt," Proxmire wrote that the citizens of this country "are worried that America has lost her leadership in the world, that we are bungling our way from crisis to crisis." And he noted the "deep concern" among the populace "over the influence of 'big money' in shaping American policy."

That concern is sure still with us. A recent Harris Interactive poll showed that about 90 percent of the American public believes that big business has too much power.

Proxmire may be best remembered for his "Golden Fleece" awards exposing absurd government expenditures. But I believe he deserves most credit for giving 3,000 speeches in favor of the Convention Against Genocide, which the Senate finally ratified in 1988.

My condolences go out to his widow, Ellen, who also wrote for us about campaign finance reform, and to his entire family.

Condolences, as well, to our friends at Monthly Review and to the family of Harry Magdoff. The man who co-edited that radical magazine with Paul Sweezy for three decades died on January 1. In 1969, Magdoff wrote The Age of Imperialism, which contains this bracing line: "Imperialism is not a matter of choice for a capitalist society; it is the way of life of such a society."

For your irony file: I was invited to speak to a high school social studies class about McCarthyism at a theater in Madison before the students saw Good Night, and Good Luck. But two days before the event, I was yanked from the program. The principal of Columbus High School, Connie Valenza, told The Capital Times that the teacher who had invited me failed to clear my name with her.

"I've never heard Mr. Rothschild speak, I didn't have an opportunity or a lot of time to do the research on the type of speech he would give and how he would present it for the kids," Valenza told the paper.

I was to speak for all often minutes.