"The real train wreck happens in September"

According to Walter Pincus, writing with Joby Warrick in the Washington Post, it was Mike McConnell who -- far from being the White House's stooge -- wanted full surveillance powers and was steamed at a Congress trying to limit them.

For three days, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, had haggled with congressional leaders over amendments to a federal surveillance law, but now he was putting his foot down. "This is the issue," said the plain-spoken retired vice admiral and Vietnam veteran, "that makes my blood pressure rise."

McConnell viscerally objected to a Democratic proposal to limit warrantless surveillance of foreigners' communications with Americans to instances in which one party was a terrorism suspect. McConnell wanted no such limits. "All foreign intelligence" targets in touch with Americans on any topic of interest should be fair game for U.S. spying, he said, according to two participants in the Aug. 2 conversation.

...Shortly after that exchange, the Bush administration leveraged Democratic acquiescence into a broader victory: congressional approval of a Republican bill that would expand surveillance powers far beyond what Democratic leaders had initially been willing to accept.

But McConnell's troubles are far from over.

"The real train wreck happens in September," said a senior administration official involved in the negotiations with Congress. He was referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's declaration hours after the bill's passage that portions are "unacceptable" and that the public will not want to wait six months "before corrective action is taken."

Pincus' report on the step-by-step "persuasion" of Congress is the clearest and most succinct to date.   It shows exactly how the administration maneuvered, how it managed to get what it wanted without giving an inch. 

Except, of course, the administration is now bound by a timeline of six months (or much less), a furious, embarrassed Congress, and a huge majority of Democratic and non-Democratic voters who are appalled by the extent of the administration's ability to flout the social contract with respect to  "search and seizure."

Update:  As Marty Lederman writes, no one has given a good explanation of why Pelosi and team backed off.