It's a good bet Americans may be interested in getting an answer. Sen. Rockefeller and Rep. Pelosi were briefed on the NSA surveillance program two years ago, but are quick to let everyone (particularly their party's hysterical base) know that they had serious "concerns" about it. According to today's Washington Post,

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) revealed Monday that he had written to Vice President Cheney the day he was first briefed on the program in July 2003, raising serious concerns about the surveillance effort. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she also expressed concerns in a letter to Cheney, which she did not make public.

So, Rockefeller and Pelosi are now claiming that they opposed the NSA operation as briefed to them by intelligence officials. They also want to hold the president "accountable" for pursing the program. But what about their accountability in light of the remarks of Gen. Michael Hayden, deputy national intelligence director, made at a Monday news conference?

REPORTER: Have you identified armed enemy combatants, through this program, in the United States?

GENERAL HAYDEN: This program has been successful in detecting and preventing attacks inside the United States.

REPORTER: General Hayden, I know you're not going to talk about specifics about that, and you say it's been successful. But would it have been as successful -- can you unequivocally say that something has been stopped or there was an imminent attack or you got information through this that you could not have gotten through going to the court?

GENERAL HAYDEN: I can say unequivocally, all right, that we have got information through this program that would not otherwise have been available.

America is a battlefield in the war against al Qaeda that stretches from New York, Washington and Los Angeles to Madrid, Baghdad, Karachi and Jakarta. The commander-in-chief believes he had the legal authority to conduct surveillance when "one party to the communication is outside the U.S" (as does a Clinton associate attorney general here), and, according to Gen. Hayden, the president's actions stopped terrorist "attacks inside the United States."

Pelosi and Rockefeller and other Democrats opposed these actions.

Let the debate begin.