JUST PRETEND THEY MATTER, FOR APPEARANCE SAKE:

Wider Briefing for Lawmakers on Spy Efforts (MARK MAZZETTI and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, 5/18/06, NY Times)

Classified briefings provided to lawmakers on Wednesday about a controversial domestic eavesdropping program have smoothed what might have been a contentious path toward confirmation for Gen. Michael V. Hayden as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, senators and Congressional officials said. [...]

Lawmakers have said that even without Wednesday's briefing, by Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the current N.S.A. director, the Senate was likely to confirm General Hayden. Yet Wednesday's briefings diminished the prospect that the hearings, before the Senate Intelligence Committee, would become a focus of hostile questions from Democrats and Republicans on the panel who had not been briefed on the program, in which the security agency monitored, without court warrants, the international telephone and e-mail communications of those suspected of having links to terrorists. [...]

One senior Democratic Senate aide, who was granted anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about his party's strategy, said of Thursday's hearings, "Democrats were much more likely to cause problems if they weren't able to ask knowledgeable questions during the hearing."

Constitutional law isn't secret but none of the Senators asked knowledgeable questions of John Roberts or Sam Alito.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 18, 2006 10:22 AM