Whose politics of fear? By Rich Lowry

Last week, in the words of Nancy Pelosi, House Democrats struck back against "fear" and "fear-mongering." They let the terrorist surveillance program expire, thus making a stirring gesture of national self-confidence and fearlessness.

House Democrats probably can't sustain their stand against renewing the program over the long term, so they will have managed a Pyrrhic defeat, losing on the policy and exposing a major political vulnerability for the fall.

President Bush compromised with Senate Democrats on a renewal of the surveillance program that passed by a 2-1 margin. The program monitors the communications of terrorist suspects outside the United States, which the president has the inherent authority to do. The legal and political controversy has arisen because many overseas communications now — in the age of fiber optics — travel through the United States and has gotten entangled with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

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