"The same Democrats who oppose the war in Iraq tend to oppose the National Security Agency surveillance program, condemn aggressive interrogations, and complain about the Patriot Act. It is all part of a worldview that wishes away dangers when they demand philosophically uncongenial responses, defined as roughly anything that doesn’t involve shoveling federal money to localities.

We will learn more about how the Brits managed to unravel the airline plot in the coming days, but surely it involved extensive monitoring and the strictest secrecy, capped off by an act of preemption when Scotland Yard arrested the plotters. All of these have been in a bad odor among liberals lately. They will say they support them in this case, never mind that they look askance at them during our stretches of complacency. [ Lowry gives them too much credit. They largely think this whole thing was the result of Karl Rove hypnotizing Tony Blair and the whole British police... -ed. ] "