Are you scared of Alito?(Samuel Alito)

NEW YORK, JANUARY 10

SO Senator Kennedy wants to know why it is that, "undeterred by the public outcry, the president vows to continue spying on American citizens." That mauling of Bush was done in passing, on the first day of deliberations over the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. It is easy to dismiss what the senator says on the grounds that whenever he touches on the judiciary he is predictably high on that particular hooch which brought him to denounce Judge Bork in language that would have been excessive in describing the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. But allowing for the senator's lack of judgment in these matters, it is worth probing what he says on the grounds that there are some people, somewhere, who take his charges seriously.

The outstanding question here is: What public outcry? Critics of the action taken by President Bush are, in ascending order of gravity, l) those who regularly exclaim that any increase in the resources of law enforcement is a threat to our liberty; 2) those who believe that this particular initiative of the president is uniquely despotic; and 3) those who believe that in taking this initiative, Mr. Bush didn't abide by his covenant with the legislature, which was to check out with Congress and a federal judge any federal surveillance of any individual that extends to listening in on telephone calls and intercepting mail.

But the question remains: What public outcry? There was some of this in Congress, but the situation was troubled: Irate congressmen had to contend with the president's saying that at least a dozen times he had advised relevant members of the intelligence committees of what he was doing.

The matter of checking in with a federal judge is also in question. The administration takes the position that the congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force to combat terrorism subordinates the ...