Remarkably irresponsible polling and journalism by the NYT in today’s story about the illegal wiretapping. They fell into the exact debate the administration and Karl Rove want to have: are you for or against wiretapping terrorism suspects? Falling directly into the dishonest trap being set by the Republicans, which is that they are somehow tougher on terrorists than the Democrats would be.

Here’s the bogus stuff:

The poll, conducted as President Bush defended his surveillance program in the face of criticism from Democrats and some Republicans that it is illegal, found that Americans were willing to give the administration some latitude for its surveillance program if they believed it was intended to protect them. …

In one striking finding, respondents overwhelmingly supported e-mail and telephone monitoring directed at “Americans that the government is suspicious of;” they overwhelmingly opposed the same kind of surveillance if it was aimed at “ordinary Americans.”

That’s not “striking;” that’s beside the point: no one on either side of the aisle wants to wiretap anyone the government is not suspicious of. Rather, the issue is, does or does not the government need to demonstrate to a judge why it is suspicious?

Democrats support tapping suspected terrorists as much or more than any Republican. The only question on the table — one that the NYT ignored entirely — is whether or not Americans for the first time in history want to cut judges out of the wiretap approval process entirely, and for the first exempt the executive branch from the check and balance of having to run wiretaps by a judge. Bearing in mind, of course, that under FISA, the government in an emergency can immediately start to wiretap somebody, so long as they get court permission within three business days.