Treason of Omission and Commission

Yesterday we discussed how the domestic political opposition has moved even beyond the outer lunatic fringes of Bushophobia into outright treason for its own sake. Following are two more examples of this despicable trend.

In his latest column, NRO's Rich Lowry explains how the only violations of the Constitution that have occurred in connection with the NSA foreign surveillance program have been robed seditionists' attempts to obstruct it:

In a 2002 decision, Judge [James] Robertson and others on the FISA court imposed restrictions on the Bush Administration's conduct of foreign-intelligence investigations that weren't mandated by the language of the 1978 FISA statute, and that had been explicitly made unnecessary by the 2001 Patriot Act. The Bush Administration appealed, and the FISA court of review issued a stinging rebuke to Robertson, et al.

The court of review, apparently a stickler for such things, said the FISA "court did not provide any constitutional basis for its action — we think there is none — and misconstrued the main statutory provision on which it relied." Besides that, it was world-class jurisprudence. By effectively trying to micromanage the Justice Department, the decision continued, "the FISA court may well have exceeded [its] constitutional bounds."

Specifically, Article II, which quite unambiguously states, "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States...." As Lowry observes, "If he can bomb the nation's enemies overseas without a court's approval, he certainly can listen to their conversations."

So, then, the Constitution that left-wingnuts claim to venerate is, in fact, no more of an obstacle to their drive to betray their own country than is honesty, integrity, or decency. One wonders if they don't see the jihadis as potential liberators of America from the twisted, psychotic cartoon caricature they've made in their fevered minds of the duly, twice-elected President of the United States.

One thing is clear - if that speculation is anywhere near the truth, the same lib quislings that can't keep their mouths shut when it comes to protecting their own country's national security secrets will never utter a peep about the approach of their "rescuers":

The mainstream U.S. media outlets have failed to report a major terrorist plot against the U.S. - because it would tend to support President Bush's use of NSA domestic surveillance, according to media watchdog groups.

News of a planned attack masterminded by three Algerians operating out of Italy was widely reported outside the U.S., but went virtually unreported in the American media.

Italian authorities recently announced that they had used wiretaps to uncover the conspiracy to conduct a series of major attacks inside the U.S.

Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said the planned attacks would have targeted stadiums, ships and railway stations, and the terrorists' goal, he said, was to exceed the devastation caused by 9/11.

First of all, thank you, Italy. Second, thanks for nothing, Extreme Media. The Italian press was all over this story. The British press was all over this story. The French press was all over this story. The RED CHINESE press was all over this story. But the American media?

The Associated Press version of the story did not disclose that the men planned to target the U.S. Nor did it report that the evidence against the suspects was gathered via a wiretapping surveillance operation.

Furthermore, only one American newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, is known to have published the story that the AP distributed. It ran on page A-6 under the headline "Italy Charges 3 Algerians.” The Inquirer report also made no mention of the plot to target the U.S. - although foreign publications included this information in the headlines and lead sentences of their stories. Nor did it advise readers that domestic wiretaps played a key role in nabbing the suspected terrorists.

There would seem to be only one rational explanation for this deafening EM silence, and it's the same one underlying their willful mischaracterization of the NSA foreign surveillance program as "domestic spying": it's the latest gambit for bringing down a Bush Administration that has beaten the media-political complex in three consecutive elections and has survived everything they've thrown at it. To draw attention to the fact that a(nother) coordinated terrorist attack bigger than 9/11 was thwarted by the very same counter-terrorism tactic that libs are desperately trying to villify would directly undermine the only mission that matters to them: George Bush's impeachment.

And yet the public already supports NSA wiretapping by a 2-1 margin, and this time, for once, the Bushies aren't standing there like punching bags indifferently absorbing blow after blow, but are aggressively and effectively demolishing the Donk lies and distortions. So, then, denying the "public's right to know" facts of which they're already aware is both functionally and politically futile, yet the EM persists in blacking out the truth. With little or no political gain in it for them, can such stubborness really be explained just by sheer partisan obsession? Just how far does dhimmization stretch? Shall we coin the term "Vichycrats," or would that be too cryptic for the historically illiterate?

One man who is never cryptic is Vice President Cheney. Here's Big Time's latest on this topic:

Another vital step the President took in the days following 9/11 was to authorize the National Security Agency to intercept a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications. There are no communications more important to the safety of the United States than those related to al-Qaeda that have one end in the United States. If we'd been able to do this before 9/11, we might have been able to pick up on two of the hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon. They were in the United States, communicating with al-Qaeda associates overseas. But we didn't know they were here plotting until it was too late.

If you'll recall, the report of the 9/11 Commission focused criticism on our inability to uncover links between terrorists at home and terrorists abroad. The authorization the President made after September 11th helped address that problem in a manner that is fully consistent with the Constitutional responsibilities and legal authority of the President and with the civil liberties of the American people. The activities conducted under this authorization have helped to detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks against the American people. As such, this program is critical to the national security of the United States. [emphases added]

These are not matters of opinion; they are facts. And the American people overwhelmingly agree and support the Administration in its tireless efforts to connect the counter-terror dots and do all within its legal and constitutional power to keep the homeland safe and secure. The only ones who do not are the hard left and its rabid cadres of Bush/America-haters. And if its equally tireless efforts to sabotage U.S. national security and recklessly endanger American civilians don't enhance their political prospects - and they're not and haven't for four years running - I invite, nay challenge, anybody to come up with a more descriptive term for it than the "t" word.

Even if that motive isn't unleavened, the effect is indistinguishable. Something from which to draw cold comfort if the efforts of the leakers, James Risen, the New York Times, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi et al cause you to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, as three thousand of our dearly departed countrymen were on a bright Tuesday morning fifty-one months and twenty-five days ago.