The President is not the enemy

Ed Koch speaks truth to Democrat powers:

I wish The Times and members of Congress were not so eager to demean the President of the U.S. and his advisers, holding them up to scathing denunciation when we are at war. They should realize that the President feels very strongly his obligation to protect us from terrorists overseas and their supporters in this country -- in World War II, such supporters were called Quislings. The critics have short memories. In the 1993 and 9/11 (2001) attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the U.S. suffered nearly 3,000 deaths and more than 1,000 injured.

The Times has every right to disagree with the President’s action in dispensing with the court set up for this purpose. But it harms the country when it treats the President unfairly with the language and contemptuous tone it now regularly employs.

The President is not a dictator which, in effect, Congressman Charles Rangel called him when comparing him with disgraced Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Nor is he a criminal intentionally violating the U.S. Constitution and the civil liberties of our citizens, . . .

For several years Republican and Democratic leaders have been briefed on what the President was doing and declined to protest or bring the disputed procedures to the attention of the House and Senate. They could have done so using closed sessions so as not to alert the enemy. Instead, they allowed the President to continue the surveillance.

Now the press and some of those members of Congress by their public revelations have alerted the enemy to the surveillance program. And the media and some members of Congress have forgotten or don’t care that we are at war and their disclosures may have prevented the administration from obtaining information otherwise available that would help military and law enforcement authorities to deter acts of terrorism here and abroad.

Koch criticizes Bush for not having these orders submitted to a FISA court, but you have to remember that even this critical top secret ended up being leaked to the press. Nothing that goes on in Washington, apparently, can be kept secret. Every disgruntled fool who convinces himself that what the administration is doing is wrong feels justified in leaking secrets to the press.

Personally, I think the Justice Department should have a grand jury subpoena everybody at the NYTimes from the publishers and editors on down and if they refuse to tell how they got this leak, toss them in jail until they do. The press is not above the law. And when it violates the law it should be held accountable. We cannot have classes in this country who aren't accountable for anything they do, whether it be Justices who usurp the right to make policy or media who place their political views ahead of national security. We know now that every president since Reagan has authorized warrantless surveillance like this.