TIME.com -- Joe Klein: How to Stay Out of Power

TIME.com -- Joe Klein: How to Stay Out of Power:

Joe Klein gets it right. The liberal donkeys, in their zeal to regain power and their hatred of Bush, are once more out of step with common sense Americans. God forbid they were ever to get power.

So sad that so many journalists follow this liberal tripe and try to make the case that our rights are hurt. Most of them are '60s flower children is my guess.


"But these concerns pale before the importance of the program. It would have been a scandal if the NSA had not been using these tools to track down the bad guys. There is evidence that the information harvested helped foil several plots and disrupt al-Qaida operations.
There is also evidence, according to U.S. intelligence officials, that since the New York Times broke the story, the terrorists have modified their behavior, hampering our efforts to keep track of them?but also, on the plus side, hampering their ability to communicate with one another.
Pelosi made clear to me that she considered Hayden, now Deputy Director of National Intelligence, an honorable man who would not overstep his bounds. 'I trust him,' she said. 'I haven't accused him of anything. I was, and remain, concerned that he has the proper authority to do what he is doing.' A legitimate concern, but the Democrats are on thin ice here. Some of the wilder donkeys talked about a possible Bush impeachment after the NSA program was revealed.
The latest version of the absolutely necessary Patriot Act, which updates the laws regulating the war on terrorism and contains civil-liberties improvements over the first edition, was nearly killed by a stampede of Senate Democrats. Most polls indicate that a strong majority of Americans favor the act, and I suspect that a strong majority would favor the NSA program as well, if its details were declassified and made known.
In fact, liberal Democrats are about as far from the American mainstream on these issues as Republicans were when they invaded the privacy of Terri Schiavo's family in the right-to-die case last year.
But there is a difference. National security is a far more important issue, and until the Democrats make clear that they will err"