'œIt's wonderful to see what a few brave politicians can achieve,' said E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post. When news first broke two months ago about President Bush's secret wiretapping program, the White House's response to expressions of concern from Congress and the media was: 'œBuzz off.' Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was still peddling that arrogant line last week, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that the wiretap program was legal because the president says it's legal. But several Republican senators stood up to him, including Heather Wilson of New Mexico and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Graham said it was 'œvery dangerous' for a president to claim authority to supersede the law, reminding fellow Republicans that they won't always occupy the Oval Office. Reluctantly, the White House is now moving toward a compromise. It has agreed to brief Congress regularly, and in greater detail, about who's been tapped and with what results.
It no longer matters, said Daniel Henninger in The Wall Street Journal. The program to monitor al Qaida's phone calls into and out of the U.S. is now effectively dead. After all the publicity and public posturing about wiretapping, 'œdoes anyone think the boys working on plans for Boston Harbor, the Golden Gate Bridge, or Chicago's Loop are still chatting by phone?' By all means, let's 'œpull over to the side of the road and have a long national conversation' about the constitutional niceties of eavesdropping on terrorists. But let's remember that while we're doing so, the next 9/11 is being planned. 'œHaving watched one passenger-filled airliner fly into a skyscraper,' back in 2001, 'œI'd just as soon not repeat the experience.'
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