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Gallup rang in the new year by reporting that two-thirds of Americans are pessimistic that Osama bin Laden will be apprehended, that half fear another 9/11-style terrorist attack, and that a majority do not believe the United States and its allies are winning the war against terrorism.

In such an environment -- less than five years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -- it was reasonable for President Bush to assume that the public would be not only forgiving but encouraging of imaginative law enforcement techniques designed to forestall another deadly attack.

But it hasn't quite gone this way.

If Bush learned one thing in 2005, it was the folly of letting criticism fester unchallenged. So he spent the past week addressing the accusation that he put himself above the law by approving electronic eavesdropping on communications between American citizens and suspected terrorists.

"Even though you hear words, 'domestic spying,' these are not phone calls within the United States," Bush said at Kansas State University. "It's a phone call of ... [a] known Al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States. I'm mindful of your civil liberties, and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process."

The same day, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the deputy director of national intelligence, spoke at the National Press Club, where he said flatly that if this program had been in place in 2001, some of the 9/11 hijackers would have been "detected" -- and identified as Qaeda operatives.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales went to Georgetown University's law school to plead the administration's case, and on Wednesday, Bush went to National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., to thank employees who "know what I know -- that we must learn the intentions of the enemies before they strike."

Team Bush has sounded confident that the American people will see this as a choice between a political party that favors action and one that venerates legalisms. Thus, the question shifts (they hope) to the opposing party.

Do Democrats really want to scrap this program? How can they be so offended by the government's monitoring fanatics suspected of planning mass murder? Are they are playing partisan politics with our lives?

Good questions. But the answers all point back to Bush.

Democrats insist that it's not up to them to say whether they'd keep the surveillance in place -- because they have only vague ideas of what it entails. "We don't know what they did," said one former Clinton administration national security official. "Congress doesn't know, either. There's no oversight."

Several Democrats expressed irritation at Bush's insistence that he consulted with Congress, because it amounted to a few classified briefings with a handful of congressional leaders sworn to secrecy.

"That's not informing us," scoffed one Democratic House member who asked not to be quoted by name. "For one thing, the leaders never told the caucus. I doubt they even knew what they were hearing anyway. I've had classified briefings from this administration -- and they're a joke."

Few Democrats said they object to the surveillance itself, but most are outraged by the process. Is that reaction a bit melodramatic considering what's at stake? That question is posed to Les Francis, a moderate Californian who worked on congressional liaison for President Carter -- and who supports Bush's foreign policy.

"I might be the right person to ask because I've been wondering that myself," Francis said. "I take the position that if bad guys are calling other bad guys, we ought to wiretap them. So why are [Democrats] working themselves into such a lather? I think because it's reminiscent of Nixon."

Now there's a comparison no president wants -- not when electronic eavesdropping is the context. Francis is hardly the only one with second thoughts about Bush. A Gallup Poll released this week reported that 51 percent of Americans said that Bush was "wrong" to approve gathering information without obtaining warrants from a court.

That finding may, or may not, accurately gauge Americans' concern about civil liberties. One thing is clear, however: Attaching George W. Bush's name to almost anything -- health care, the economy, education, the presidency itself -- automatically provokes a negative reaction from about half the country. In other words, whatever else they are doing, Bush's critics just might be playing smart politics.