LOUISVILLE, Ky. – After initial reservations, President Bush said yesterday that he isn’t bothered by congressional hearings on his domestic spying program as long as they don’t aid the enemy.

“That’s good for democracy,” Mr. Bush said, provided the hearings don’t “tell the enemy what we’re doing.”

In the days after the secret wiretapping without warrants was revealed, Mr. Bush cautioned against hearings, saying congressional leaders had been privately consulted and he had worked within the law to authorize eavesdropping on Americans with suspected ties to terrorists.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, a Republican of Pennsylvania, has promised hearings on the issue, and the Senate Intelligence Committee could also investigate. House Democrats have asked their Intelligence Committee for hearings, and Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee plan to hold a forum on the monitoring program’s legal ramifications on January 20.

In Louisville, Mr. Bush hosted a casual, town hall-type event reminiscent of his campaign stops. Mr. Bush paced, with microphone in hand, like a talk show host in front of signs that left no doubt about the administration’s message of the day: “Winning the War on Terror.”

Mr. Bush’s approval rating bumped up slightly to 42% in December, but it remains low, with 40% of Americans approving and 59% disapproving of the way he’s doing his job, according to the latest AP-Ipsos poll conducted the first week of January.

After his opening remarks, Mr. Bush fielded about 10 questions from the audience of invited groups. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the questions were not prescreened. Mr. Bush said no topics were off-limits, and even invited a question about Iran, but nobody asked one.

Instead, the audience wanted to know about the war, terrorism, and a host of domestic issues, including health care, education, and immigration.

Mr. Bush acknowledged differences over Iraq. “Whether you agree with me or not, we’re doing the right thing,” Mr. Bush said, adding that terrorists or insurgents fighting democratic reform in Iraq are “not going to shake my will.”

A 7-year-old boy’s question – “How can people help on the war on terror?” – gave Mr. Bush an opening to score some political points against his critics and try to keep Democrats from using Iraq as an issue in this year’s midterm elections.

“It’s one thing to have a philosophical difference – and I can understand people being abhorrent about war. War is terrible,” Mr. Bush said. “But one way people can help as we’re coming down the pike in the 2006 elections is remember the effect that rhetoric can have on our troops in harm’s way, and the effect that rhetoric can have in emboldening or weakening an enemy.”

It was the second day in a row that Mr. Bush warned his critics to watch what they say or risk giving comfort to American adversaries. On Tuesday, before a gathering of Veterans of Foreign Wars, he said Democrats who do will suffer at the ballot box in November.