From today's Opinion Journal comes a strange, but not surprising call to deal with the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping by abolishing FISA. Those who are paying attention could counter by pointing out that abolishing FISA would be little more than show, considering how callously it's been ignored in this fight. If the law is ignored by any administration, and no one in Congress is willing to punish that act (a likely, though not foregone, conclusion in this scandal), perpetuating the law is quaint, but pointless. I'm just amazed that supposedly intelligent individuals lack inclination to challenge such blatant abuse of the Constitution and the rights it guarantees. Consider:

Whatever happened to "impeachment"? Only two months ago, that was the word on leading Democratic lips as they assailed President Bush for "illegal" warrantless NSA wiretaps against al Qaeda suspects. But at Monday's Senate hearing on the issue, the idea never even made an appearance.

The reason isn't because liberal critics have come to some epiphany about the necessity of executive discretion in wartime. The reason is they can read the opinion polls. And the polls show that a majority of Americans want their government to eavesdrop on al Qaeda suspects, even--or should we say, especially--if they're talking to one of their dupes or sympathizers here in the U.S.

"The polls tell me this is the path" is a poor way to lead for both parties. If we're going to run the country that way, we should consider national referendum's on every vote Congress makes. That way, our elected representatives can know exactly how to vote on every issue. No need to let the pesky Constitution get in the way.

But at least this warrantless wiretapping only infringes on our rights. Something more disturbing with this approach shines through in the next paragraph.

In short, the larger political battle over wiretaps is over, and the President has won the argument among the American people. We hope Dan Bartlett, Steve Hadley and other White House message-makers notice the difference between this outcome, on a matter on which they bothered to fight, and so many other controversies when they ceded the field to their opponents ("torture," Joe Wilson).

"Torture." Wonderfully cheery, those editors. The Bush Administration should take the lead and torture anyone it pleases, in any way it pleases, as long as it keeps us "safe" from The Bad People Who Hate Our Freedoms. This is acceptable because the polls tells us the people don't mind. After all, if you've done nothing wrong, what do you have to worry about? We only torture people who deserve it, especially because they might have a ticking time bomb. That's also why we need to wiretap without a warrant. A terrorist might have a ticking time bomb that makes seeking a retroactive warrant too burdensome and dangerous to the American people. It's all for our own good. And, again, the polls show that we realize it.

The bullshit continues in paragraph four, which really is all the evidence anyone needs to know that reading further is unnecessary, as the Opinion Journal editors are more interested in power than our Constitution.

All the more so because the policy debate over Presidential authority continues, and on a dangerous path. Judging by Monday's hearing, Senators of both parties are still hoping to stage a Congressional raid on Presidential war powers. And they hope to do it not by accepting more responsibility themselves but by handing more power to unelected judges to do the job for them.

Remember, the public has already told us that, after The Bad People Who Hate Our Freedoms, activist judges are out to destroy America. We shouldn't give them any more power because they're all evil¹. And we don't want that kind of power invested in one person. Unlike the "entire executive branch", which is a force only for good.

Read the second half of the editorial if you don't think its credibility is undermined by the nonsense in the first half. Interestingly, it arrives at the conclusion that FISA should be abolished by using the logic that the president might be denied the right to save us all because an unelected judge gets in the way. No other argument I've seen gives this any credibility, and I'm not willing to offer it any credibility here. Instead, laugh along with me at the absurdity of this:

As federal judge and former Deputy Attorney General Laurence Silberman explained in his 1978 testimony on FISA, the President is accountable to the voters if he abuses surveillance power. Fear of exposure or political damage are powerful disincentives to going too far. But judges, who are not politically accountable, have no similar incentives to strike the right balance between intelligence needs and civilian privacy. This is one reason the Founders gave the judiciary no such plenary powers.

President Bush is no longer accountable to the public in the way the editors imply. He won't face another vote, unless that's the next bastardization of the Constitution the editors wish to embrace. The only recourse is impeachment, which is how this editorial began. Unless they'd like to propose leaving that decision for the people to decide, I'm dismissing that argument because questioning the President's actions is precisely what the Congress and the Judiciary should be doing. Given President Bush's poll numbers and their implication that polls should substitute leadership, I suspect the editors might wish to do the same.

¹ Except Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, who are in the mold of Justice Antonin Scalia. They're proper conservatives who understand the role of the Judiciary and respect it, which is why the American people gave President Bush a landslide victory in 2004. The War on Terror and conservative judges. Oh, and to fight the Homosexual Agenda. On those issues, we know we can always trust the President.