Hilary Clinton inadvertantly revealed the reasoning - explicit in her case, but unconscious among her colleagues - behind the curious willingness of Democrats to support the President’s war powers in recent weeks. Mrs. Clinton told supporters in New Hampshire that, while terror is terrible in itself, it could be even worse: “… if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world.”

Mrs. Clinton expresses what many of her colleagues may only feel instinctively. But the effect is the same: the fear of a political boost for Republicans has inspired them to act effectively on issues like communications surveillance. Only a churl would point out that the fear of Republicans is more persuasive to them than a concern for the safety of ordinary Americans and the security of our nation. But I would note the following points:

1. The Democrats know that what President Bush is asking them to do, in terms of surveilling potential terrorist communications, is effective - otherwise, they wouldn’t bother to anger their left wing by supporting him. In effect, they grant that the President is right about the efficacy of such policies and their own policies are ineffective.

2. They are supporting more effective measures against terrorism only as a political ploy. There’s nothing wrong with this in itself - I’ll take any help I can get in keeping my children, my country and political freedom itself safe from harm. But the other part of the Democrats’s disingenuousness is that, should they win the election in 2008, they will undo these measures - because once in power, if a terror attack occurred, they would benefit from the political habits of Americans to rally around the President. So what they are doing is, again implicitly, signalling that they would undo these favorable actions once in power, and take the risk - a risk that even the Democrats acknowledge is certain- that our security would be seriously compromised.

Thanks are due to Mrs. Clinton for her frankness. Let’s do her the honor of paying grave attention to what she is really saying.

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