When you've lost George Will...

... things are looking bad. It appears that conservative columnist George Will has taken the time to interview constitutional scholars, lawyers and experts in the field before giving his opinion on both the legality and the wisdom of Bush's Snoopgate decision. As always, he exercises restraint and tries to give the benefit of the doubt to both sides of the discussion, but he finishes with this.

On the assumption that Congress or a court would have been cooperative in September 2001, and that the cooperation could have kept necessary actions clearly lawful without conferring any benefit on the nation's enemies, the president's decision to authorize NSA's surveillance without the complicity of a court or Congress was a mistake. Perhaps one caused by this administration's almost metabolic urge to keep Congress unnecessarily distant and hence disgruntled.

Clearly this case is far from settled. A lengthy investigation will no doubt follow and scholars from both sides of the aisle will weigh in with interpretations of the laws in areas which are clearly complex. As we watch it play out, however, there are a couple of points to keep in mind.

First of all, following the press conference by the Attorney General and the President's own press conference, it has been made clear that one of the chief pillars of their argument is that the President, in his capacity as Commander in Chief of the armed forces, has wide ranging powers when fighting a war. Clearly we'll need experts in the legal field to sort this out, but as laymen, there is one thing to remember: The NSA is plainly and obviously a civilian organization and part of the government - not part of the military. This means that any actions undertaken by the NSA at the behest of the President fall under the purview of the courts and the laws of the land. Had the President ordered military officials from the Pentagon to do these things, I think we would be hard pressed to argue against it, no matter how distasteful it may seem to us. But that's not the case here.

And if we are correct in assuming that this is strictly a matter of civilian control, then the laws of the land, as passed by our legislature, have to rule the day. FISA seems fairly clear on this, but I've seen some analysis from each side which indicates that this could fall into an area of shades of gray. What remains to be seen, however, is that if these actions were, in fact, violations of the law, should the question of impeachment now be seriously considered?

Apparently Congressman John Lewis and Senator Barbara Boxer are thinking it might. Stay tuned, sports fans. This promises to be a big week for news has we head into the holiday break.