From the WSJ: Inarticulate Drivel

I don't know if it's the pending influence of Rupert Murdoch, or if they are independently creeping toward vacuous punditry, but the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board put forth a piece today that is dripping with inartful sophistry, attacking Democrats who opposed extending the Protect America Act:

What we have here is a remarkable display of the anti-antiterror minority at work.

Forgive my brief foray into grammatical banality, but using a double-negative to call the Speaker of the House an accomplice to terrorism is an incomprehensibly weak journalistic tactic, in addition to being grossly inappropriate. I have been a vocal critic of Speaker Pelosi for years, but even she gets it right now and again -- and I think she's right this time.

But reasonable people may disagree on the Constitutional and moral extent of domestic and foreign wiretapping by our government. Yet, saying that about Ms. Pelosi -- and by association, most libertarians I know of including Gulf War and Afghanistan vets, journalists, think-tankers, and former Federal judges -- subtracts any meaning from the intelligence debate and, frankly, is an indiscreet attack by a nameless half-wit hack. Ultimately, this just reflects poorly on one of our nation's greatest newspapers without adding anything substantive to the issue -- subverting the purpose of editorials.

But for what it's worth, given even a cursory reading of the 4th Amendment, I can only deduce that the Founding Fathers too would be thus viewed as "anti-antiterror":

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Maybe the WSJ staff just felt it had to suck up to the GOP because of this scathing piece it also ran today about Rep. Jeff Flake's (R-AZ) doomed run for the vacant Appropriations Committee slot.

At least someone over there still gets it.


On a totally unrelated note, as I typed this, the spell check dinged me for "inartful." Determined to use it anyway, I found this blurb on the Volokh Conspiracy justifying my usage.