What's legal?

Professor Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy gets the prize for timeliness and comprehensive analysis regarding the legality of surveillance of emails and/or phone calls as argued and authorized by the president.
This very long post together with comments (nearly two hundred and counting, most of which are substantive) can keep a reader tied up for the rest of the morning...

Eugene Volokh is impressed.
Me too.
I think I'll wait for the big guys to sift through this one before I come to any conclusions.
My instinct is to ask why a president wants to skate so close to the edge of the law, even if he is keeping to the right of the center line. Reminds me of Clinton's "depends on what the difinition of 'is' is". Or Gore's "no controlling legal authority..." How many of the president's supporters rail against "moral relativism"?

My comment: I'm relieved that Alberto Gonzalez isn't on the Supreme Court. Legal minds that advise the president how best to keep out of legal trouble to that degree are like physicians who amputate limbs under Sharia law in order avoid septic side effects.