On the whole, well done.

NEW YORK, DECEMBER 20

IF a high government official pleaded the authority of the Bible as reverentially as is now routine in citing the authority of the Constitution, he'd be had up for idolatry. One way to vest mystique into the Constitution is to plead its inscrutability, or else suggest that only the high priests of the legal profession are equipped to interpret it.

The secretary of state informed Tim Russert no fewer than four times on Meet the Press that she was not a lawyer. The clear purpose of making that point, in that way, was to suggest that the non-anointed can't responsibly interpret the Constitution's provision describing executive duties and prerogatives. That's nonsense, and since Condoleezza Rice is a very smart lady, one had to acknowledge that she simply did not want to argue the meaning of Article II of the Constitution. She didn't want to be the first secretary of state to pass down word that it's okay for a president to bug your phone because that's what the Constitution says!

Well. All that Article 11 does say is that the president is to be the commander in chief of the armed forces, that he can order subordinates to account for themselves, and that he can pardon them if they trespass on the law. Conjugate that as you like, but we all know (Tim Russert certainly knows) that you will find lawyers arguing that what the president had most recently done is unconstitutional, and lawyers who will say the opposite.

Derivative questions immediately came up. Why didn't Mr. Bush, in exercising the authority he claims inheres in the office, go through the procedurally reassuring step of asking officials of other branches of government for their compliant approval of what he was doing?

The president handled those questions at his press conference on Monday. On the matter of consulting somebody in the court system, he said the reason he hadn't done so was the need for total secrecy. The slightest hint of what he was up to, he said, could have had the effect of undermining the entire enterprise. Could the president give an example of how the new interceptions had worked in just such a way, to abort terrorist attacks?

No, the president said. To do any such thing would be immediately to compromise an operation, tipping off an incumbent Osama to what we were doing.

But what about a constitutional responsibility to elicit congressional approval of extraordinary applications of the authority of commanders in chief? Why didn't he tell Congress?

The president loved that question, and several times told the press that he had in fact informed congressional leaders no less than a dozen times since he began the disputed process. It is left for the press to inquire why the legislators who knew about the practice didn't raise their voices to object. Their answer is easily predictable. They did not object for the same reason that the president would not disclose what he was up to publicly: to do so would have been to jeopardize the success of a continuing tactical operation.

Why didn't the president call on a judge to stamp his approval on a proposed phone interception? During the day, historic and extraordinary figures were revealed. Since 1979, the executive has petitioned the courts to authorize 19,000 telephone interceptions. Permission has been granted in all but five instances. Curiosity turns on which five projected buggings the courts said no to, and how many trysts were saved for the day.

What is a reasonable verdict from a conservative/libertarian on what happened?

(1) The president did his job of attempting to outmaneuver the enemy.

(2) The press may have overdone its interceptive curiosity, but it performed the function of a free press.

(3) The legislative arm yielded to the demands of national security.

(4) The courts, acknowledging a natural division of responsibilities, stayed away.