Blogoland

Josh Marshall expresses something approaching bewilderment that the president and his cronies are arguingthat surveillance is good for foiling terrorist plots.

From perusing a few headlines it seems the White House and some editors are taking to arguing that surveillance or domestic wiretapping is necessary for national security, that it saves lives.

Of course, it does. What a stupid thing to say, or for the White House, what a disingenuous thing to say.

Of course, it's not stupid at all. It is the kind of fake debate the President and his gang want us to have: those who are for saving the American people from attack, and those who are not. You see, if you're against the president giving himself absolute dictatorial powers, powers that shred the constitution and make a mockery of the phrase "rule of law," then you are with the enemy. The president and his men hope you have no brain to realize that of course it is correct for us to do everything we can to find terrorist threats, just extremely wrong to ignore our laws in that effort.

Read Ezra for a better written argument on this matter.

UPDATE: Just saw Michael Isikoff on CNN arguing this very point. See, the way he figures, the whole NSA-spying thing plays into the President's hands by showing the American people that he's serious about terror.

He's our Vigilante-in-Chief.