The Important Stuff

"A last-minute deal Tuesday with Vice President Cheney averted a possible confrontation between the Senate Judiciary Committee and U.S. telephone companies about the National Security Agency's database of customer calling records.

"The deal was announced by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the committee chairman, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. They said Cheney, who plays a key role supervising NSA counterterrorism efforts, promised that the Bush administration would consider legislation proposed by Specter that would place a domestic surveillance program under scrutiny of a special federal court.

"In return, Specter agreed to postpone indefinitely asking executives from the nation's telecommunication companies to testify about another program in which the NSA collects records of domestic calls. . . .

"The deal prompted protests from Democratic lawmakers, who said the Republican-controlled Congress had refused to challenge the administration's expansion of presidential authority. 'Why don't we just recess for the rest of the year, and the vice president will just tell the nation what laws we'll have?' said Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the committee."

And apparently Cheney didn't just offer a carrot. He used a stick, too.

Peter Szekely writes for Reuters: "Specter said he agreed to defer his earlier plans to subpoena telephone executives after Vice President Dick Cheney said they would be precluded on national security grounds from answering questions about the reported disclosure of call records."

No Questions

The White House press pool got a surprise opportunity to ask Bush some questions yesterday in Laredo .

But due to a combination of attention deficit disorder and sunstroke (it was, in fact, hellishly hot) they forgot to ask him anything about Iraq or domestic spying.

Live Online

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Elizabeth Drew on Executive Power

I wrote at some length in yesterday's column about the broader issue of the Bush administration's dramatic expansion of executive power (which of course suffuses the two issues discussed above.)

A reader called my attention to Elizabeth Drew 's article on that very topic in the current issue of the New York Review of Books.

Drew's piece serves as an important and comprehensive primer on the issue. Go read it.