Can You "Diggs" It?

Commentary by Greg Lewis / NewMediaJournal.US
August 21, 2006

The mainstream media were quick to find favor with United States District Circuit Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's ruling that so-called warrantless federal wiretapping in the service of combatting terrorism is unconstitutional. They did this in order to twist the facts and implications of the case to their own ends . . . or should I say "end," since the single goal of manifesting their hatred of George W. Bush with an eye toward advancing their inarguably leftist political agenda is really the only outcome they seek.

Indeed, one journalist went so far over the top that she characterized what's going on in the world as "President Bush's war against terrorism," apparently forgetting that this conflict really concerns all Americans and apparently neglecting to recall that Islamist terrorists had, in fact, killed some 3,000 American citizens on our own soil less than five years ago.

Such is the fervor with which what ur-conservative-talk-show host Rush Limbaugh characterizes as the "drive-by media" pursue their quarry, especially when they sense they might have said quarry in their sights.

Because, make no mistake about it, Democrats and the mainstream media have no interest whatsoever in either the conduct or the outcome of the ongoing international war against Islamist terrorists. Democrats' direct interest in the military progress of this conflict is less than marginal, to the point where they have not even bothered to mention it as an issue in their party's platform for the upcoming mid-term elections. Indeed, the one question that is guaranteed to cause a Dem to sputter and look about in desperation for someone to rescue him or her from an embarrassing and inextricable blind alley is this: "What have the Democrats done to make Americans safer from terrorism during the years since the 9-11 attacks?"

Democrats simply have no answer for this question, not least because, in the final analysis, they're on the side of the Islamist terrorists. Dems have, through their political machinations, implicitly allied themselves with the very forces that would destroy western capitalistic democracies and, in the process, "drive Israel into the sea."

On the off chance Dems might actually try to respond honestly to such a question, about the only answer they could give would be something like this: "Well, we voted for the war in Iraq, but since it doesn't appear to be going so well we've decided to change our position and oppose ever having gone into Iraq. We now recommend that we get our troops out of that country post haste."

How else explain that the national party has pledged its support in the Connecticut Senate race to the unproven Ned Lamont in favor of Party stalwart Joe Liebermann? The fact is that Liebermann, running as an Independent, is going to defeat Lamont and retain his Senate seat in the upcoming election, as are so many other House and Senate candidates who support Bush's policies. The broad result will be that Dems will be again scratching their heads, wondering how their uplifting message — that we should cut and run in Iraq and that we should withdraw from the war against international terrorism through judicially overturning legislation and policies that have actually proven effective in thrwarting terrorist attacks on our shores — can have failed to resonate with the American people.

In the run-up to the November elections, the Dems might say, "President Bush did indeed consult us regarding the so-called 'federal wiretap' issue by which the President authorizes American intelligence to monitor phone conversations between suspected terrorists and their supporters outside the U.S. and others of their ilk in our own country, but we nonetheless applaud Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's ruling that this practice is unconstitutional, if for no other reason than that it puts the President on the defensive and we don't really give a fat rat's ass about whether the practice makes Americans safer anyway. Our goal remains to undermine Bush's security policy and to weaken America's position in the war against terrorists in the interests of regaining the political power we've frittered away in the past decade or so."

Dems continue to harp disingenuously on the idea that we haven't done enough to thwart potential terrorist attacks in the United States, that the policies of the Bush administration have actually weakened us in this ongoing global war. They don't bother to mention that we have not been attacked on our own soil since 2001, possibly because to make such mention would be something akin to admitting that their position has no basis in fact, never mind that almost none of their other positions do in any case.

One of the speculative questions that emerges in this ongoing Democrat-driven politicization of the issue of the American people's security is this: "What if terrorists are successful during the next 45 days or so in perpetrating an attack against American citizens on our own soil, an attack that kills even 50 or a hundred Americans?"

To speculate within an even narrower margin of likelihood: "What if the plot to bring down as many as ten airliners flying from Britain to America that was recently foiled through the efforts of Britain's intelligence and police forces, in conjunction with those of Pakistan and the U.S., had been successful? What if several thousand airline passengers' remains had been — as one source has asserted the Islamists' intentions were — made to rain down on American soil through on-board bombs exploded shortly before the planes were scheduled to land?"

One is loath to speculate how the Left might spin either of these possible tragedies. On the one hand, they're working to handcuff American security interests by falsely tying such tools as the federal wiretapping capability to civil rights. Indeed, if Judge Taylor's ruling stands — there's not a chance in hell that it will, if knowledgeable sources I'm aware of are correct — Dems who have hailed the ruling are open to charges that they're actually trying to weaken national security and that such events as the recent airline bombing plot are exactly evidence of this.
On the other hand, the Democrats' adversaries, mostly Republicans and conservatives, can point to the fact that, not only have there been no successful terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, it is precisely because the Bush administration has been so vigilant and has implemented rigorous anti-terrorist measures that we have been enabled to remain terror-free. Either outcome, as I see it, would favor the conservative Republican position.

As to the Democrat charge that the war in Iraq can somehow be deemed at this juncture a failure, Republicans and conservatives need only counter with the obvious fact that the War in Iraq is far from over, that more than ten million Iraqi citizens, through casting their votes, voiced their opinion that they would rather die (indeed, they voted under the imminent threat of death) than return to life under an Islamist-fascist regime.

Further, it is precisely in the Middle East, where Islamist-fascists have gained such a strong foothold, that the war against a force that could become the scourge of western democracy on our planet should be fought. Unfortunately, the war against the forces of Islamist terrorism promises to be a long one, and we need to steel our resolve that we will not, as Democrats would advise, capitulate to their aggression.

As any sane and intelligent and modestly well-informed person will tell you, the United States is the principal combatant in the ongoing global war against an insidious Islamist-terrorist force that will be satisfied with nothing less than bringing down western democracy, and along with it the economic and social pillars of civilized society that captalism and western science and political liberalism represent. Make no mistake: Our very way of life is at stake here, and many of the leaders of the western world are shrinking from the daunting task that faces us.

In our own country, Democrats are advancing the absurd notion that they are the ones with whom we should entrust our nation's security. The fact that they've chosen to characterize the competing interests in this case as those of our citizens' "civil rights" versus assaults against their (and all of our) personal security is enough to illustrate several points.

First, in advancing through the ACLU a "case" that would reduce our capability to combat terrorism they demonstrate no knowledge of the history of Presidential edicts associated with such issues. Presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt, to mention only two icons of leftist ideology, both found it necessary to suspend not only judicial process (Lincoln temporarily disallowed habeas corpus rights) but the public's "right to know" (FDR withheld publication of the deaths of U.S. military commanders during World War II). What President Bush is asserting in terms of executive power in the current case pales by comparison to earlier incidences.

In addition, the important condition of "standing" has simply been glossed over. Those bringing the lawsuit have not even bothered to address the issue of whether anyone has actually been harmed by this practice. Judge Taylor has done nothing more than gloss over the aforementioned "standing" issue, nor has she bothered to cite relevant constitutional case law in defense of her blatantly broad-brush ruling.

But even more important, adversary Democrats — those very people who have applauded Judge Taylor's ruling — have no sense of the existential urgency of the struggle we're currently engaged in. Submerged as they are in the miniscule lake that their hatred of the President represents relative to the global oceanic scheme of things, Dems have simply relinquished the right to be taken seriously, much less even listened to, on the issue of national security.

Dems just don't get it, even when it's shoved in their faces, as, one would think, it had to have been in the British transatlantic airliner case. Their public comments in response to the several incidents I've cited amount to not much more than — as the late John Belushi so eloquently and forcefully put it — a desperate 'But, no-o-o-o!'

Dems continue to be hamstrung by the dissonance between their fundamental opposition to western capitalism — as exemplified by their need, based on some inexorable anger that will manifest itself against the Bush administration — and their political need to somehow, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, convince a majority of the American electorate that their candidates in the upcoming elections are somehow to be entrusted with the responsibility to protect and preserve American interests in the broader global community, a majority of whose member nation-states fail to understand the issues at hand.

I'm betting that in the upcoming elections the "will of the people" will prevail. And I'm betting furthermore that said "will" will manifest itself in a resounding repudiation of the leftist-Democrat position, which more and more seems to fall out on the side of giving in to terrorism, of abandoning our hard-won military and political progress in the Middle East, of presenting to the world a face of America that is weak and indecisive and unassertive.

It is precisely because we cannot afford to so much as entertain such an outcome as the Democrats implicitly propose that it is incumbent on us to reject the current Democrat political offensive and to reassert vigorously "the Bush Doctrine." This will again put forth the principles that the forces of terrorism and the states that support them are to be confronted militarily at every turn, and that those states that would make a home for democracy are to be encouraged and supported at every opportunity.