Legal is as legal does.

WASHINGTON, May 18 — Gen. Michael V. Hayden sought on Thursday to distance himself from the Pentagon and its role in prewar intelligence on Iraq, in an appearance that put him on track to win swift confirmation as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

In a confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, General Hayden appeared in the pristine blue uniform he has worn for 36 years as an Air Force officer.

But he repeatedly professed his independence from the Defense Department and its leadership, saying he had been "uncomfortable" with the work of a Pentagon intelligence office run by Douglas J. Feith, a former undersecretary of defense, which asserted in the months before the Iraq war that Iraq had established ties with operatives for Al Qaeda in the Middle East...

Which is of course why he was put in charge of a policy Chancellor Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans, headed by Feith, emphasized.

General Hayden also recounted disagreements with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the Pentagon's control over a large part of America's annual intelligence budget...

That's right. If it isn't black budget, it can be traced. On the other hand, if the Pentagon controls all the agencies they get all their budgets and get to tell them what to do, too.

..General Hayden flatly defended as legal the secret domestic eavesdropping program he ran until last year as director of the National Security Agency, and that argument was directly challenged by only a handful of Democratic senators...

Are Democrats the foolish obstructionists or the loyal opposition this week? Of course, Clinton was better: his NSA bothered with getting the rubber stamp of judicial approval when his NSA listened in on everybody. Which of course makes the trolling legitimate.

But he notably declined to endorse a Bush administration stance that has severely limited the number of senators who could be briefed on the program. "It was not my decision," he said...

Isn't Don Negroponte a great coach?

None of the 15 senators on the committee indicated that they planned to vote against General Hayden's nomination. By day's end, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Republican chairman of the committee, said he hoped to hold votes in the committee and the full Senate next week that could install General Hayden at the C.I.A. by Memorial Day...

Well that settles that. It's all legal, and he is totally uninfluenced by the other Sith Lords of the Pentagon, 'cause he said so. Loyal opposition, indeed. The best Senate money can buy.