Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' stonewalling at this week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on domestic spying was a performance worthy of our recent run of Supreme Court nominees.

Just as Samuel Alito and John Roberts were evasive about so many issues, Gonzales was even more so as he used the shield of "national security" to withhold information on domestic spying.

Regardless of how the administration wants to recast the issue as a "terror surveillance program," it's important to get at the truth so there's no question whether the executive branch overstepped its authority.

If the administration wants to curb skepticism on domestic spying, we need straight answers.

But Gonzales constantly repeated Bush's belief that the president had authorization to use electronic surveillance since he had been granted the right to use military force.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., almost broke through when he asked Gonzales why the administration — three years after working under this assumption — met with some members of Congress, as if to ask for authorization, when the media was close to breaking the spy story.

Leahy asked Gonzales if it was an attempt to cover the administration's tracks. Barring straight answers, it sure looks that way.

Now Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., chair of the House Intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence, has called for a further inquiry.

It may be time for a thorough review by an independent prosecutor.

But if ever there was any doubt, this week's hearing showed why the the attorney general, the former White House counsel and an architect of the spying policy, should recuse himself from any future investigation.