You have a busy day and miss the opportunity to agree with George Will. These opportunities are rare as hen's teeth; more precious than pearls.

Anyway, the argument that the AUMF contained a completely unexpressed congressional intent to empower the president to disregard the FISA regime is risible coming from this administration. It famously opposes those who discover unstated meanings in the Constitution's text and do not strictly construe the language of statutes.

Thank you. Though it's so obvious all you conservative pundit types should have noticed it immediately.

The administration's argument about the legality of the NSA program also has been discordant with its argument about the urgency of extending the USA Patriot Act. Many provisions of that act are superfluous if a president's wartime powers are as far-reaching as today's president says they are.

One way or another, there was an active intent to mislead someone.

Besides, terrorism is not the only new danger of this era. Another is the administration's argument that because the president is commander in chief, he is the "sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs." That non sequitur is refuted by the Constitution's plain language, which empowers Congress to ratify treaties, declare war, fund and regulate military forces, and make laws "necessary and proper" for the execution of all presidential powers . Those powers do not include deciding that a law -- FISA, for example -- is somehow exempted from the presidential duty to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

The only way not to see this is to be SO partisan they reflex has entirely displaced thought. One can't even consider accusing George Will of that. He is, however, sufficiently partisan to wimp out in the end.

But 53 months later, Congress should make all necessary actions lawful by authorizing the president to take those actions, with suitable supervision. It should do so with language that does not stigmatize what he has been doing, but that implicitly refutes the doctrine that the authorization is superfluous.

What the Bush regime has done should be stigmatized. The rebuke should be explicit, though it doesn't need to be part of the language of whatever bill proceeds from all this.