EDMUND L. ANDREWS:

Top advisers to President Bush want to weigh the benefits of tighter domestic security against the "costs" of lost privacy and freedom.

It sounds like a good idea. But he insists on explaining the use of cost-benefit analysis in terms of an economic tool that conservatives have often used to attack environmental regulation.

The domestic security push has in many ways turned the battles of cost-benefit analysis on their head. In the 1980's, consumer advocates like Mr. Nader often denounced cost-benefit analysis as a tool conservatives used to swat down environmental and safety regulations.

The reporter seems to want to suggest that conservatives are a monolithic group that unanimously opposes environmental regulation but unanimously supports expansion of the powers of the law enforcement. But it was Bush's own White House Office of Management and Budget that wants to way these costs. Anyway, not that I'd label myself a conservative, but for the record, I'm in favor of cost-benefit analysis all the time.