WSJ on Safety Before Liberty

[John Young]

Continuing to beat the drum, today's Wall Street Journal
offers two essays on how much liberty to give up for safety.

One, an Op-Ed by a historian, recounts how in the past the 
United States Presidents have imposed draconian wartime 
draconian security measures and trashed civil liberties far
more than anything currently contemplated, naming Adams, 
Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, among others. But claims that 
after the crises passed civil liberties were restored "stronger 
than ever." So fear not what is in the offing.

The second, by a WSJ columnist, argues that enough is
too much, that the Bush Administration halt curtailment
of civil liberties, and that the sunset provisions of current 
anti-terrorism proposals are a good thing. 

These wafflings are diabolical apologies for what Bush
coupers are up to, offerings of amelioration to disarm
critics. Woolsey, Stew Baker, Bork, the WSJ, the host of oilers
and greasers of anti-terrorist power grabbing through 
crisis-mongering need -- how to say it in safety without
sacrificing liberty -- need typhoid mary cigarring, oops, 
need fifi's homestead featherdusting.