The Raw Story has the full text of Gore’s speech. The main point being made across the blogosphere is: conservative Republicans are joining with Democrats to condemn Bush’s behavior in violation of FISA.
This quote from Gore’s speech highlights the connection between appointing Samuel Alito to the court and extending executive power:
The President’s decision to ignore FISA was a direct assault on the power of the judges who sit on that court. Congress established the FISA court precisely to be a check on executive power to wiretap. Yet, to ensure that the court could not function as a check on executive power, the President simply did not take matters to it and did not let the court know that it was being bypassed.
The President’s judicial appointments are clearly designed to ensure that the courts will not serve as an effective check on executive power. As we have all learned, Judge Alito is a longtime supporter of a powerful executive – a supporter of the so-called unitary executive, which is more properly called the unilateral executive. Whether you support his confirmation or not – and I do not – we must all agree that he will not vote as an effective check on the expansion of executive power. Likewise, Chief Justice Roberts has made plain his deference to the expansion of executive power through his support of judicial deference to executive agency rulemaking.
This quote describes the way the President’s medicare plan was not fully disclosed to Congress and is consequently turning into a disaster:
For example, when the Administration was attempting to persuade Congress to enact the Medicare prescription drug benefit, many in the House and Senate raised concerns about the cost and design of the program. But, rather than engaging in open debate on the basis of factual data, the Administration withheld facts and prevented the Congress from hearing testimony that it sought from the principal administration expert who had compiled information showing in advance of the vote that indeed the true cost estimates were far higher than the numbers given to Congress by the President.
Deprived of that information, and believing the false numbers given to it instead, the Congress approved the program. Tragically, the entire initiative is now collapsing- all over the country- with the Administration making an appeal just this weekend to major insurance companies to volunteer to bail it out.
Kmareka.com 
This whole NSA thing gives me the willies. The one talent that bu$h has demonstrated these past five years is the ability to instill FEAR in the electorate. Next to this FEAR, a few niceties about civil liberties or even torture seem like no big deal. People are afraid, and don’t care if a few swarthy people are inconvenienced or worse. Until we can get beyond this, bu$h will continue to play the 9/11 theme song, continue to equate disagreement with treason, and very effectively change the subject to one of his choosing.
There is another section of Gore’s speech in which he asks if things are more dangerous now than they were when the British army was marching on Washington, or when the USSR had thousands of missiles pointed at us, or when we were fighting two (count ’em) world wars. Again, he’s right, but the present danger is always much, much worse to those suffering through it than something that happened 20 or 60 years ago.
So, if we are going to get bu$h out of his comfort zone, it seems that we (meaning the loyal opposition) have to stop running whenever he brings up 9/11 or terrorism. Instead, we need to take him head-on. We were attacked. What has been done to make us safer? The answer is virtually nothing. Cabin doors on airplanes haven’t been hardened because this would cost the airlines money, first responders still cannot communicate effectively with different groups, and chemical plants have not been secured, because this, too, would cost money. If he’s going to play the fear card, ask him what he’s done to make us safer, and don’t fall for the whole Iraq diversion.
Also, Gore hit on two other vulnerabilities: the economy, in which 80% of workers have seen their wages fall, and the basic incompetence fostered by corruption of the government as he has run it. The Medicare drug benefit is a combination of both corruption and incompetence. There is nothing in the bill that will actually help restrain costs, and most of the money being spent is simply a giveaway to big Pharma and insurance companies.
So the openings are there; however, we need to pick our battles. Choose the turf. Hit him where he’s weak, and we might stand a chance of getting our country back.