Sometimes I’ll feel like I’ve been unfair to political scientist Raphael J. Sonenshein and I’ll try reading him again, only to discover why I loathe the man’s thinking.
In this article, he blasts the Democrats for caving in to the administration and granting legal immunity to the telecoms who cooperate with law enforcement in finding terrorists.
This is one of our best tools for fighting terrorists. If legal immunity is not given, telecoms and other important businesses will have less incentive for cooperating with the government. As a result, we will be less safe.
We haven’t been able to find one American who has been injured by this wiretapping access, yet we do know that this access has provided important information that has kept us safer.
I wouldn’t mind my phone was randomly tapped for terrorist talk if this would provide our country greater safety.
Andrew C. McCarthy writes for National Review:
It’s been nearly three weeks since House Democrats endangered our national security by effectively rescinding the law that permitted the intelligence community to conduct aggressive surveillance outside the United States. That has sensible Democrats increasingly worried.
They know their House leadership has bungled this issue. The Democrat-controlled Senate passed a compromise measure by a decisive two-to-one margin. Yet, Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to allow the Senate bill to even reach the floor — where it would have doubtlessly passed. Instead, top Democrats embarrassed themselves by voting a couple of transparently politicized, legally meaningless contempt citations against Bush-administration officials and then . . . leaving for a week’s vacation. Now, we are only a few legislative days away from yet another recess, this one for two weeks over Easter.
The party’s 2008 prospects may hinge on a convincing demonstration of national-security seriousness. For members who grasp that, skipping town without addressing the perilous gap in our capacity to detect new terrorist threats is unacceptable.
