Gonzales: When al Qaeda is destroyed and it no longer poses a threat to us.

The same, one imagines, might have been said about the Nazis in 1941 or 1942. Biden’s point, of course, is the oft-stated complaint that the war on terror has no definite end-date. Has there ever been a war that has?

Yes, as long as al Qaeda is still a threat, there will never be a time when we would not want to know what its operatives are saying when they communicate into and out of the U.S. Why is that an offensive concept?