Please Point Out the Incoherence

Both the New York Times and the Washington Post have prominently-placed articles in Wednesday's papers covering President Bush's attempt on Tuesday to put pressure on Congress to renew the Patriot Act. In the words of Elisabeth Bumiller at the Times:

President Bush assembled a phalanx of United
States attorneys at the White House on
Tuesday to bolster his call for Congress to
renew the antiterrorism law known as the USA
Patriot Act, intensifying a coming clash with
Capitol Hill over civil liberties and national
security. Surrounded in the Roosevelt Room
by 19 federal prosecutors, Mr. Bush said
Congress was holding up renewal of the law
because of politics.

Jim VandeHei's piece at the Post has this graf:

"For partisan reasons, in my mind, people
have not stepped up," Bush told reporters, with
19 federal prosecutors by his side. "The enemy
has not gone away; they're still there, and I
expect Congress to understand that we're still
at war and they've got to give us the tools
necessary to win this war."

Unfortunately, at no point in their respective pieces do Bumiller or VandeHei make the rather obvious point that Bush's position regarding renewal of the Patriot Act is entirely at odds with his position regarding the NSA spying program. According to the legal arguments offered by the Bush administration to justify warrantless NSA spying, the president already has the implicit power--under the AUMF and Article II--to do just about anything he deems "necessary to win this war." Why does he need Congress to provide him with "tools" that he already has? Indeed, by the administration's own reasoning, isn't Congress encroaching on the President's inherent authority by even attempting to legislate in this area?

Couldn't Bumiller and VandeHei at least hint at this rather massive incoherence? Is it really asking too much for reporters to compare and contrast statements made by the administration on the same day in only slightly different contexts?