They can't handle the truth

Ed Koch speaks truth to the Demorat 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 doesn't agree with going the warrantless route, but the President does have that power, and it doesn't appear to me that he abused it. As I've said before, let those who were harmed come forward and make their case, because the New York Times and all the critics here have no standing to complain about a program which benefited them and did them no harm. We've become used to metaphysical arguments about civil liberties adapted from philosophy but with no real legal basis.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board has more sense. It expressses thanks to the President for protecting us and singles out Russ Feingold for his liberal stupidity:

The usual assortment of Senators and media potentates is howling that the wiretaps are "illegal," done "in total secret," and threaten to bring us a long, dark night of fascism. "I believe it does violate the law," averred Mr. Feingold on CNN Sunday.

The truth is closer to the opposite. What we really have here is a perfect illustration of why America's Founders gave the executive branch the largest measure of Constitutional authority on national security. They recognized that a committee of 535 talking heads couldn't be trusted with such grave responsibility. There is no evidence that these wiretaps violate the law. But there is lots of evidence that the Senators are "illegally" usurping Presidential power--and endangering the country in the process.

And there is continuing evidence that the press can't be trusted with this kind of information.