Rough Justice

Today, even as polls show strong support for the Bush Administration's measures, opinion takers are picking up on the stirrings of skepticism. Focus groups--wide-ranging interviews in which participants talk about their concerns rather than respond to questions--suggest that Americans see the relationship between security and freedom not as a clash of absolutes but as a balance of values, both of which are important to them. "People raise the concern on their own," an influential Democratic strategist told Time. "It's very much in the context of 'If we become like them, they've won.'"

But the free and open debate going on right now about proper methods of law enforcement and the role of the Executive Branch shows just the opposite: that America's enemies, who hate us because we are free, have undeniably lost.