The White House characterized last week's closed-door briefings as a significant concession and a sign of the administration's respect for Congress.

Many Democrats dismissed the briefings as virtually useless.

I sense an impasse.

Senate intelligence committee member Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) is drafting legislation that would "specifically authorize this program" by excluding it from the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Senators Snowe and Hagel also support the plan.

What, then, exactly, would be left for the FISA court to do? By all indications, DeWine's "exclusion" is effectively a repeal of FISA.

Hagel said, "if the inquiry is just some kind of a punitive inquiry that really is not focused on finding a way out of this, then I'm not so sure that I would support that."

Because really, what's the big deal?

Congressional Probe of NSA Spying Is in Doubt