***Sigh***

And without firing a shot. One lawyers' opinion:

Is there no principle subject to negotiation? Is there no course subject to reversal? For the Bush administration to argue for years that this program, as operated, was critical to our national security and fell within the president's Constitutional authority, to then turnaround and surrender presidential authority this way is disgraceful. The administration is repudiating all the arguments it has made in testimony, legal briefs, and public statements. This goes to the heart of the White House's credibility. How can it cast away such a fundamental position of principle and law like this?

It seems odd, given the President's attitude with regards to questions of Executive authority. I'm with Levin; I don't get it.

Update: Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy has a theory:

I'm not entirely sure I know what to make of Attorney General Gonzales's letter today about the NSA surveillance program, but I wonder if I'm quirky in reading it possibly to mean that DOJ found a judge who was willing to approve the entire TSP program under FISA.

...

The letter also says that as a result of this development, the President no longer needs to and will not reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program.The letter also says that as a result of this development, the President no longer needs to and will not reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

...

If this does involve a blanket order approving the entire program, it would seem to be a very clever move by DOJ. It would achieve four things, as I see it. First, it would make the TSP program very difficult to challenge. I gather no one would have standing to appeal the FISC order to the FISA Court of Review; even if the FISC order is unlawful, it's unclear as a procedural matter how it could be challenged. Second, it might moot the pending NSA litigation, or at least render any opinion in that case of very limited consequence. Third, it puts the Administration in the position of having obtained a court order, so that even if the order is unlawful it's "the judge's decision" rather than the Executive's. And fourth, it might help persuade the press to focus elsewhere; the press would be sure to present this as a concession to the Administration's critics (as the N.Y. Times did today), and the press is likely to be much less interested after they think the Administration has backed down.

Of course, whether this is true depends on whether the Administration obtained some kind of blanket order or plans to get orders on a case-by-case basis. And it's unclear when or if we'll know which occurred.

Another case of the Bush sucker-punch?: George W. Bush knows much more information about these topics than his domestic political opponents do. At the moment, they are betting a lot of their chips on one side of these questions.

True then, maybe true now. Who knows?