I find myself in an unaccustomed and unexpected position: defending Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Gonzales fans, if there are Gonzales fans left, except for the only fan who counts: Don't take any comfort from my assessment.

In his Senate testimony last week, Gonzales once again dissembled and misled. He was too clever by seven-eighths. He employed his signature brand of inartful dodging — linguistic evasion, poorly executed. The brutalizing he received from senators of both parties was abundantly deserved.

But I don't think he actually lied about his March 2004 hospital encounter with then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. I certainly don't think he could be charged with — much less convicted of — perjury.

Go back to December 2005, when The New York Times reported on a secret program of warrantless wiretapping. President Bush acknowledged an effort "to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al-Qaida and related terrorist organizations."

Soon, the first stories about the hospital visit appeared.

In a Jan. 1, 2006, article, the Times reported then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey's refusal to approve continuation of the surveillance program and described "an emergency visit" to Ashcroft's hospital room by Gonzales and Andrew Card, then White House counsel and chief of staff, respectively.

Similarly, Newsweek reported how the White House aides "visited Ashcroft in the hospital to appeal Comey's refusal. In pain and on medication, Ashcroft stood by his No. 2."

It was in this context — senators knew about the hospital visit well before Comey's riveting description in May — that Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February 2006.

Asked about those reports, he said that "with respect to WHAT THE PRESIDENT HAS CONFIRMED, I do not believe that these DOJ officials that you were identifying had concerns about this program." The disagreements, he said, "dealt with operational capabilities that we're not talking about today."

Flash-forward to last week, when Gonzales once again said: "The disagreement that occurred and the reason for the visit to the hospital ... was about other intelligence activities. It was not about the Terrorist Surveillance Program THAT THE PRESIDENT ANNOUNCED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE."

The emphasis is mine, and it matters. We know, from Comey's account, that the dispute was intense. We don't know precisely what the disagreement was about — and it makes sense that we don't know: This was a classified program, and all the officials, current and former, who have testified about it have been deliberately and appropriately vague.

In his May testimony, Comey referred only to "a particular classified program." FBI Director Robert Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee last week that the hospital-room encounter was about "an NSA program that has been much discussed."

Does this really contradict Gonzales or turn him into a perjurer? It's clear there was an argument over the warrantless wiretapping program. Comey refused to recertify it. In response, something about the program changed; Justice officials were willing to go along with the modified program.

The New York Times reported Sunday that the disagreement involved "computer searches through massive electronic databases" — not necessarily the more-limited program the president acknowledged. As the Times put it, "If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales' defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct."

Congress deserves better than technically correct linguistic parsing. So the bipartisan fury at Gonzales is understandable. Lawmakers are in full Howard Beale mode, mad as hell at Gonzales and not wanting to take it anymore.

But perjury is a crime that demands parsing: To be convicted, the person must have "willfully" stated a "material matter which he does not believe to be true."

The Supreme Court could have been writing about Gonzales when it ruled that "the perjury statute is not to be loosely construed, nor the statute invoked simply because a wily witness succeeds in derailing the questioner — so long as the witness speaks the literal truth" — even if the answers "were not guileless but were shrewdly calculated to evade."

Consequently, the calls by some Democrats for a special prosecutor to consider whether Gonzales committed perjury have more than a hint of maneuvering for political advantage. What else is to be gained by engaging in endless Clintonian debates about what the meaning of "program" is?

Rather, lawmakers need to concentrate on determining what the administration did — and under what claimed legal authority — that produced the hospital room showdown. They need to satisfy themselves that the administration has since been operating within the law; to see what changes might guard against a repetition of the early, apparently unlawful activities; and to determine where the foreign intelligence wiretapping statute might need fixes.

That's where Congress's focus should be — not on trying to incite a criminal prosecution that won't happen of an attorney general who should have been gone long ago.

NEWSWEEK: Why did you file this suit?

Robert Levy: First, because I’m a fervent believer in the Constitution, including the Second Amendment, and I read the Second Amendment as securing an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. In most jurisdictions, the courts have read the Second Amendment only to protect members of militias.  In D.C., that issue has not been resolved.  I saw an opportunity, with my two co-counsels, to vindicate Second Amendment rights and to establish a precedent that, if it reached the Supreme Court, would be applicable across the nation.

You don’t own any guns personally.  Why not?

While I believe the Constitution secures my right to own guns, as a practical matter, I don’t sense the need to do so.  I live in a safe area, a relatively affluent area, and crime isn’t a major issue where I live.  I don’t have the same need for self-defense as the six plaintiffs in the Parker case.

Why is the Second Amendment so important?

Originally it was important as a protection accorded to American citizens against a tyrannical government. But even before the Constitution was written, even before the U.S. government was formed, the right existed.  It was a means of self-defense, and today the right to bear arms protects us against predators.  It’s important to note that the Second Amendment doesn’t grant a right to bear arms.  It says the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed,” meaning that it already existed.

How expansive is your view of what the Second Amendment protects?  What if I want to walk around carrying a fully automatic machine gun?

The right to keep and bear arms, like all other rights, is not absolute.  Under the First Amendment, we can’t incite other people to riot. Under the Fourth Amendment, reasonable searches are permitted.  Well, in the case of the Second Amendment, there can be reasonable regulations.  It’s quite clear that some weapons can be regulated, weapons of mass destruction, for instance.  Some persons can be regulated against bearing arms, minors for instance.  Some uses can be and are regulated.  Uses of guns in crimes, for instance.  The question is what constitutes reasonable regulation.

D.C.’s mayor, Adrian Fenty, says that the gun laws have saved countless lives by keeping guns out of the hands of those who would hurt themselves or others.  What's your response to that?

I've looked at the evidence.  I've taught regression analysis and statistical inference, so I know a little bit about how to understand what it means, and the evidence is that gun laws do not help.  Gun restrictions tend to increase violence.  So, on both a constitutional basis and as a general matter, these gun restrictions have been counterproductive.  The evidence is that more gun laws lead to increased crime and more guns lead to decreased crime.

You're paying for this case out of your own pocket.  How much has it cost you?
I have paid for the whole thing, but a good part of this case was put together on donated time on the part of the attorneys involved.  My co-counsel Clark Neily and I are working on this pro bono, and our lead counsel, Alan Gura, is working at subsistence-level wages.  But I've spent a sizable sum of money, a substantial five-figure number.

Giuliani named those two justices, along with President George W. Bush's two picks, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, as the kind of people he would put on the court. He said they don't try to write laws from the bench but only interpret the Constitution "in a way that will protect your rights and my rights. They will not get it into their heads that they're really legislators and they can go around changing things," Giuliani said.

Bush himself had mentioned Scalia and Thomas as his model judges during his 2000 campaign -- a move widely viewed as a way to signal conservatives that he would move the court rightward, including on Roe v. Wade.

But conservatives then knew that Bush was personally opposed to abortion. Giuliani is using a similar pledge to convince conservatives that he would look beyond his personal views in support of abortion rights in pickng justices, raising questions of whether it will be as effective an appeal.

Giuliani also defended his record of picking mostly Democratic judges as New York mayor, saying those people didn't decide constitutional issues but mainly presided over criminal cases.

Giuliani is making his first swing through heavilly Republican western Iowa today and tomorrow, seeking to convince voters he is not bypassing the state's January caucuses despite mixed signals from his campaign.

"Part of our strategy is we work with... countries from which we import goods, to make sure that their procedures and practices will give us comfort," he said. "Finally we'll be working with companies that import goods from around the world, to make sure that their practices meet the high standards that we set for the United States."

Mr Bush has established a new panel to review the import rules. Speaking after meeting members of the new panel at the White House, Mr Bush said he believed the Government was on top of the situation.

But his comments fell short of the demands of some senators, who have called for a permanent import tsar with broader powers to oversee the safety of goods imported into the US. The panel is expected to make its recommendations on ways to improve the safety of imported goods in 60 days.

Although unions, which often back Democrats, benefit from the ruling, conservative Republicans are particularly thrilled because right-to-life groups have been aggressive in using such attack ads.

Note that Congress had not said such groups could not run attack ads. The law simply required that they be paid for with regulated "hard money" donations and not with unregulated "soft money."

The newly conservative court also took aim at Brown vs. Board of Education. Unlike that unanimous landmark delivered more than a half-century ago, the Roberts court could muster only a bare 5-4 vote to chip away at that important precedent. But the Bush administration's core supporters never have been shy about claiming total power from a slight - or even nonexistent - majority. The Roberts court said schools can't consider race as a factor when trying to rectify racial imbalance in schools. The upshot is that, in too many cases, schools will be unable to rectify racial imbalances. It's a step toward the bad old days of separate but equal.

The Roberts court has a habit of denying it is overturning established precedent even as it blatantly overturns established precedent. Expect, given the court's decision to outlaw a procedure used in mid- and late-term abortions, that other precedents concerning abortion rights will receive the same lack of respect.

The Bush presidency has been, by most methods of reckoning on the left and the right, a disaster. Depending on how long Mr. Bush's backward-looking majority dominates the high court, it could prove to be his biggest disaster, no matter how much his narrow base might celebrate it as his only victory.

In response to the crisis, more than 2,700 law students traveled to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, on trips a bit reminiscent of the famous civil rights freedom rides. The students do just about everything but appear in court, including interviewing defendants and collecting evidence. Public defenders from different parts of the country took sabbaticals from their day jobs to come down as well. But however welcome, this is as effective as washing the bathroom floor with a toothbrush, say New Orleans public defenders. Eventually, you'll clean up the mess, but a mop could take care of the problem a whole lot faster. The law firms are far stronger and richer than anyone else in the legal world. Why aren't they helping the Bayou's criminal-defense bar recover?

To be fair, big law has done a lot for the region. Firms donated thousands of hours to the legal rebuilding effort, sending lawyers down to help with FEMA appeals, small-business recovery, and Road Home grants. The Mississippi Center for Justice, a Jackson-based nonprofit founded in 2003, convinced 19 law firms to donate 8,100 hours last year, adding up to a value of $3 million.*

Most of this work, however, has been on civil matters. Generally, it makes sense for law firms to concentrate on helping with civil suits, because criminal defendants have a constitutional right to representation. Remember Gideon? The 1963 Supreme Court case ordered states to pay for attorneys for poor people accused of crimes, making pro bono work on their behalf relatively superfluous. The flip side of state-funded defense, however, is that when it fails, firms aren't prepared to help pick up the pieces. For poor litigants in New Orleans, that often means waiting months in jail before even meeting a lawyer.

It's the systems firms use to efficiently donate legal hours that hold them back from effectively helping criminal litigants. The idea of an organized firm pro bono program started gathering steam about 15 years ago. In 1993, the American Bar Association revised its Rule of Professional Conduct to describe donating 50 hours of free legal work a year as a "professional responsibility." The Pro Bono Institute at Georgetown University Law Center challenges firms to donate either 100 hours per attorney or an amount of time equal to 5 percent of the firm's total billable hours. More than 150 large firms have signed off on the standard.

That doesn't mean they meet it: According to the American Lawyer's 2006 pro bono survey, only about 37 percent of law firm attorneys at the 200 biggest firms did at least 20 hours of work last year. Still, even if the firms miss their pro bono goals, most consider setting them good for business. A strong pro bono program is a recruiting hook for top law students and junior lawyers, who give more weight to pro bono in deciding where to work than they used to. Industry publications, like the American Lawyer's A-List, include pro bono in their ranking criteria for firms.

Today, at most big firms, pro bono works like a well-oiled machine. Many have pro bono coordinators or partners working full time to vet projects and match them with the appropriate lawyers. The firms generally expect the public interest providers to present packaged, clear projects with a set scope and time frame. Firms will go far for the most desirable cases. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported (subscription required), some donate money, office space, or clerical help to nonprofits in return for the first crack at interesting legal matters. Lawyers Without Borders Inc. requires an upfront donation of $7,500 a year before it gives firms access to the best cases.

But if the cases don't fit the traditional format, firms won't touch them. And firms generally feel most comfortable doing the kind of work they know best. Hand them a real-estate dispute, small-business negotiation, or intellectual property problem, and they'll come at it with a flurry of paper and army of suits. But dealing with drug charges, petty thefts, and assaults? Not so much. Also, it takes lawyers to get lawyers. Even in the midst of legal chaos, firms want a fully developed plan of action. If a firm is going to take on a criminal case, in a district with different laws, it wants assurance that its lawyers will be heavily supervised. No firm likes a malpractice suit. And no lawyer wants to give any client—whether paying or not—bad legal advice.

But just as the fire department doesn't create a spreadsheet while the house goes down in flames, in New Orleans, there's no legal master plan and almost no one to oversee the volunteer defense lawyers. Orleans Parish lost almost all of its public defenders after Katrina, plummeting from about 40 to fewer than 10. In 2006, a Department of Justice report obtained by the Los Angeles Times recommended 70 full-time public defenders. With the city in a perpetual state of legal panic, no one has time to package up projects for firms. Also, since it takes weeks to learn how to navigate the dysfunctional system, volunteers ideally need to stay for several months. Firms are willing to send down lawyers for a week or two, but they won't give up a client-serving body for months on end.

In other cities with more developed pro bono infrastructures, nonprofit middlemen negotiate this kind of culture clash. For example, nonprofit groups like New York Lawyers for the Public Interest coordinated much of the legal response after 9/11. But in the Gulf Coast, there's no one to play mediator and no great pro bono force to spearhead a shift from civil to criminal work.

So, what can a Creole-loving firm do? Taking the small cases may be tough for firms, but challenging the entire system wouldn't be. Firms are great at impact litigation. Be it a suit against a city, state, or large public institution, firms have pushed the law forward in amazing ways through large-scale litigation. They can do the same in New Orleans. The current system raises some serious constitutional questions. For starters, poor litigants get no representation between the time bail is set and weeks later when the district attorney's office decides whether it will take the case to trial. Public defenders are funded largely by court fees—money paid by the indigent defendants themselves when they're convicted. Two New Orleans criminal court judges found the funding system unconstitutional, but the case has yet to be presented before the Supreme Court.

Another way firms could help: They can fund a New Orleans pro bono coordinator, in the way that they regularly sponsor public interest fellowships. The coordinator could work full time packaging the projects and rallying the law firm troops. The firms could get projects suited to them, and the city's defense lawyers could spend their time doing their jobs. The cavalry, it seems, might just need a good scout.