Stromata Blog

Murdered in the Cathedral

Eight hundred thirty-five years ago today (ignoring the change of calendars), four barons from the retinue of the King of England murdered Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in Canterbury Cathedral. A month before, the Archbishop had returned to England after six years in exile. To outward appearances, he and King Henry II had reconciled after a day-long conference in France the previous July, but the King was slow to carry out his promises, from which Becket inferred that his malice remained unabated. That distrust was well-founded. On Christmas Day, while keeping court near Bayeux in France, Henry uttered his famous words: “What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born clerk!” The exclamation, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” may be apocryphal, but William de Tracy, Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Morville and Richard Brito in any case took the hint.

The four quickly crossed the Channel and three days later reached Canterbury, where they gathered troops and forced their way into the cathedral complex. The Archbishop’s servants, fearing violence, hustled him to the sanctuary of the church edifice. The barons followed. Refusing to hide, or even to bar the doors of the church, the Archbishop stepped forward when they called out, “Where is the traitor?”

“Here I am, no traitor, but Archbishop and priest of God,” Becket replied. Fitzurse and de Tracy tried to arrest and carry him off, but he was tall, athletic and well able to hold his place against them. Frustrated, Fitzurse drew his sword and struck the first blow. The other barons joined the attack.

Becket fell face downwards, with his head to the north and the altar of St Benedict to his right. Richard Brito delivered the coup de grâce and Hugh de Horsea, a subdeacon who had accompanied the soldiers, scattered his brains on the floor. Becket, as he collapsed, had commended his soul to God, the Blessed Mary, St Denis, and the patron saints of his church.

After the soldiers had retreated to Saltwood Castle, the terrified monks began to pay some attention to the corpse. In the morning a kinsman of Ranulf de Broc [castellan of Saltwood, who had assisted the barons in entering Canterbury] returned and ordered it to be buried immediately in some obscure place; and a marble sarcophagus, already prepared for another burial and sunk into the floor of the Trinity Chapel at the eastern end of the crypt, was chosen. The body was not washed or embalmed, as was the custom, nor was there, because of the pollution of the church, any religious service. It was probably just after Becket's fiftieth birthday, and at the time many men thought that a traitor to the king had met an end he well deserved. [Frank Barlow, “Thomas Becket”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

The verdict of the English people was different. Within days of Becket’s martyrdom, miracles were attributed to his intercession. King Henry did public penance for inspiring the murder (protesting that he had meant nothing by his outburst). The Pope canonized the Archbishop on Ash Wednesday 1173, by which time his sanctity was already affirmed by his countrymen. For a long time thereafter, he rivaled St. George for the position of patron saint of England. His tomb was among the most popular pilgrimage destinations in Christendom. As Chaucer wrote,

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

The Reformation wrought a change. To King Henry VIII, St. Thomas of Canterbury was quite as troublesome as he had been to Henry II, for the cause of his martyrdom had been the defense of the rights of the Church against assertions of royal supremacy, and one of its consequences had been the cutting back of the monarch’s powers. There is a story, probably fake but psychologically accurate, that in 1538 the later Henry ordered St. Thomas exhumed and condemned for high treason. Certainly his tomb was desecrated at that time, and his body disappeared.

The merits of 12th Century ecclesiastical controversies are now faded. Both Church and State have altered so markedly that only a formidable scholar would be in a position to evaluate the legalities of the conflicting claims. What is nonetheless clear is that St. Thomas devoted himself whole-heartedly, without fear of death, to vindicating the rights of the subject against the power of government. The “subject” in his case was a powerful and wealthy corporate body that was itself far from innocent of overreaching. Arguably it did not need a defender as stubborn as Thomas; many of his fellow bishops were willing to compromise and concede, on the theory that the Church could regain through favoritism whatever it yielded in right. To lesser men, however, constraints upon governmental authority were vital. The general liberty that we enjoy today grew out of the specific liberties won first by the Church and then by the nobility. Elsewhere in the world, where no one had rights against the ruler (the Russian and Ottoman Empires are instances), the growth of freedom has been far slower and more precarious.

But, as is to be expected in an era of overweening government, there are “authorities” who scorn figures like St. Thomas. The Daily Telegraph informs us that a certain John Hudson, Professor of Legal History at the University of St. Andrews, has labeled Thomas “the worst Briton of the 12th Century”.

Despite his canonisation following his murder in Canterbury Cathedral, Becket was a founder of “gesture politics with the most acute of eyes for what would now be called the photo opportunity”, said Prof Hudson.

More tellingly, he said, Becket carried over his personal greed and arrogance as Henry II’s chancellor into his role as Archbishop of Canterbury, where he caused as much trouble as he could between Church and State. He was also a lawyer.

No doubt Reginald Fitzurse would have concurred in sneering at St. Thomas’ “photo op” on December 29, 1170. It’s strange, though, that a prelate so imbued with “greed” would scorn the comforts of royal favor to live in straitened exile and that the nation that he subjected to such “trouble” rallied unanimously behind him after his death. One wonders whether the real target of the professor’s ire isn’t those “troublesome” people in our own day who don’t cheerfully sign over their birthright in order to become, as C. S. Lewis put it, “willing slaves of the Welfare State”.

Addendum: Professor Hudson’s slander of St. Thomas is part of a survey directed toward identifying the “worst Britons” of each century from the 11th through the 20th. The full list, reflecting the opinions of various academicians, is a monument to contemporary frivolity:

• 11th Century: Eadric Streona (a royal counselor (to King Aethelred the Unready) who allegedly gave aid and comfort to King Canute’s invasion; though authentic information about his role is in short supply)

• 12th Century: St. Thomas Becket, as discussed supra

• 13th Century: King John (ho hum; and what about the magnates who openly supported the French invasion in 1216?)

• 14th Century: Hugh Depenser the Younger (Edward II’s notorious favorite and a reasonable candidate, though the competition is strong)

• 15th Century: Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury (almost as absurd a choice as Becket; in reality, Arundel was an opponent of royal misgovernment and a notable Church reformer, who is anachronistically chastised for suppressing the Lollard movement)

• 16th Century: Sir Richard Rich (infamous for his role in the trial of St. Thomas More but hardly a major league malefactor; I’m surprised that “Bloody Mary” didn’t get the nod, though the Earl of Essex would be more deserving)

• 17th Century: Titus Oates (unquestionably a perjured villain, but this was the century of Cromwell, Northampton, Rochester, Buckingham and plenty of others whose misdeeds were more consequential)

• 18th Century: Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (called “the Butcher” for his harsh treatment of Scottish rebels and generally not an admirable figure, but was he worse than the politicians who took bribe money from Louis XIV? [and, pace the “expert” who nominated him, he was never the “royal heir”])

• 19th Century: Jack the Ripper ([sigh] not even the worst murderer of the century)

• 20th Century: Oswald Mosley (giving too much credit to a minor demagogue; how about selecting traitors who did real damage, like Philby, Blunt, Burgess and McLean?)

The news story doesn’t name all of those responsible for this travesty. One hopes that they are privately embarrassed.

Christmas Reading (Belated)

If we think about what happened in Bethlehem two millennia ago, and of what it meant for all mankind, the “war” over what to call the season fades to inconsequence. As the Epistle read in Orthodox churches on Christmas Day says,

But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the power of the Law, in order that he might redeem those held under the power of the Law, in order, that is, that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” So then, you are no longer a slave but a son; and if you are a son, you are also an heir by God’s act of adoption. [Galatians 4:4-7]

Christmas is not, then, merely the birthday of Jesus but the true birth-day of every one of us, truly a day for rejoicing. David Warren’s Christmas essay, “What Child Is This?”, expresses that idea better than I can. A few of the highlights:

The story became visible in the Gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke. These are more than prodigies of oriental storytelling; they are unlike anything that was ever told to the ancient world. The argument in them is that God takes human form – not “human-like”, but fully human – and contrives to be born in humble circumstances in the little shepherding hillside town of Bethlehem, near to Jerusalem.

It is this self-humiliation of God that was astounding, to the ancients, and continues to be astounding to people today, outside the Christian orbit. For men had always imagined God as omnipotent, and invulnerable, on all occasions. For God to put himself in the manger, as a defenceless human child, in the care of poor defenceless parents; then expose himself to persecution, from Herod forward; till finally he submits to being crucified under Pontius Pilate – is for God to reveal himself in a radically new light.

He comes down from heaven; He embraces a human fate; He accepts suffering; in order to save us. There are many foreshadowings of this “divine condescension” in the Old Testament, especially in Isaiah, the most Messianic of the Hebrew prophets. The birth of Jesus fulfils the idea of “man made in the image of God”. But the starkly human Messiah that Christians embraced came as a shock to every ancient sensibility. How could God become “just a man”? What kind of God is that? Or looking at it another way: What child is this? . . .

The Nativity story may appear at first sight fanciful – the genealogy in Matthew; the Annunciation to Mary; and parallel annunciation to Zechariah, the father of John Baptist; the angelic descent upon the shepherds; the birth and naming of Jesus; the homage of the Magi; Herod’s edict; the flight into Egypt; Luke’s elegant description of the presentation in the Temple; of the prophecy of Simeon; and witness of the old widow, Anna. But pondered in faith, these events become plausible. For it is in faith one considers, “what child this is”. If we can believe that Christ was actually Resurrected, we can believe that his entry into the world was accompanied by extraordinary signs.

And the telling of the story has a purpose. It recalls the morning glory of creation, the first innocence of man. It is the necessary prelude. One, and only one incident is presented of Christ between his earliest childhood, and his sudden appearance as a public teacher, decades later: the glimpse we get of him as a boy – in the Temple, studying the Scripture and conversing with the rabbis. Thus, Christ touches upon heaven, at his worldly beginning and at his worldly end, but in the middle span disappears form sight. He has a human life of anonymous chores and duties – as lost to us as any human life buried in time. This was his part as a real man. . . .

Our postmodern mind is tightly bound by the idea that a story must be false, and deceitful, simply because it claims to be good, beautiful, and true. The Christmas story breaks these bonds. It may be inaccessible to the cynical and world-weary. But it will always be spontaneously understood by children, and those who can become children, in the presence of Our Lord.

Upton Sinclair’s Ethical “Quandary”

“This would have made my dad’s year,” writes Jonah Goldberg. The Los Angeles Times, not normally famous as a purveyor of historical truth, reports that a letter written by Upton Sinclair in 1929 reveals a long-kept secret: The famous author knew, even while he lionized them as innocent victims, that left-wing hero-martyrs Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were guilty as charged.

During his research for Boston [a fictionalized account of the Sacco-Vanzetti trial], Sinclair met with Fred Moore, the men’s attorney, in a Denver motel room. Moore “sent me into a panic,” Sinclair wrote in the typed letter. . . .

“Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the full truth,” Sinclair wrote. “… He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them.”

Naturally, that information doesn’t appear in the novel, which is based firmly on the premise that all of the “framing” was done by the prosecution. Nor was Sinclair eager for the world to learn it. The last paragraph of the letter reads,

This letter is for yourself alone. Stick it away in your safe, and some time in the far distant future the world may know the real truth about the matter. I am here trying to make plain my own part in the story.

And the missive remained out of sight for three-quarters of a century. The Times also quotes another overlooked letter, written by Sinclair in 1927:

My wife is absolutely certain that if I tell what I believe, I will be called a traitor to the movement and may not live to finish the book [Boston].

Of course, the next big case may be a frame-up, and my telling the truth about the Sacco-Vanzetti case will make things harder for the victims.

The Times reporter, who insists, in the teeth of such revelations, “that prosecutors in the case were biased and shoddy, and that the two men failed to receive a fair trial”, characterizes Sinclair’s situation as an “ethical quandary”. From a leftist point of view, I suppose that it was: Does one go with the “fake but accurate” version of reality or utter unpalatable truths that may horribile dictu give aid and comfort to the Right? Sinclair doesn’t seem to have found the moral struggle all that strenuous. In that respect, he is not without followers today.

Present Fears and Horrible Imaginings

Back from Christmas holidaying, during which I paid fair closer attention to sundry nephews and nieces than to important international developments, I see that a segment of the intelligentsia continues to deplore warrantless wiretaps of communications between American citizens and known members of al-Qa’eda; indeed, to proclaim that American freedom is at risk. Some of the objectors are people who have regularly denounced every action taken to combat terrorism and others, Ted Kennedy, for instance, are willing victims of hoaxes. Those can all be passed over without comment. There remains, however, a core of libertarian distrust of any exertion of governmental power premised on the needs of public safety, which has led a few ordinarily sensible commentators to join in the baying.

Libertarians are fond of the maxim (attributed to various historical figures), “Those who sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” To some of them, government interception of phone calls and e-mails is a clearcut sacrifice of liberty – the right to converse freely with others – for the sake of “temporary safety” from nebulous threats.

One can be very much in favor of liberty, and highly disinclined to cheer on the expansion of governmental power, without seeing the “liberty vs. safety” debate in quite that way. How “essential”, one might ask, is the liberty to consort with a group that conspires to murder innocent people and already has a few thousand killings under its belt? If that liberty, and no other, is taken away, the effect will be to hinder declared enemies of American life, liberty and property from carrying out their designs against us. In return, innocents who chat with Islamofascist operatives merely in order to discuss fantasy baseball leagues will lose a fragment of their privacy.

Of course, not many libertarians are so frivolous as to argue that the right of free intercourse with terrorists is precious in and of itself. Rather, they worry about what will come next. If the President, on his own authority, can let the National Security Agency listen in on Osama bin-Laden’s phone conversations with friends in the United States, what might come next? How long will it be before the NSA is promiscuously wiretapping the Cato Institute and Democratic national headquarters?

Well, let us ask, suppose that the American public foolishly elected a President with a penchant for such activities: Would we be safer from abuses of power by a proto-dictator if we prevented him from acting nonabusively? Would preventing his minions from reading al-Qa’eda’s e-mail lead him to abandon the notion (should he have it) of delving into Bruce Fein’s? I doubt it somehow. Nor do I think that one can reasonably interpret a lack of concern for al-Qa’eda’s freedom of speech as a symptom of incipient fascist tendencies.

To conjure up a threat to freedom from the President’s controverted authorization requires piling supposition upon conjecture. If the terrorist threat were no worse than a hypothetical – if no bombs had ever gone off in New York or Bali or Madrid or London – the chain of horrid imaginings might rationally outweigh the present fear of deadly attacks. As matters stand, the balance weighs heavily in favor of letter the NSA read terrorists’ e-mail, regardless of the nationality or location of their correspondents.

Given the reality of terrorism, the difficulty of knowing in advance which intercepts will yield useful information and the potentially fatal consequences of delay (not to mention leaks), it strikes me as quite reasonable for the NSA to proceed without obtaining judicial warrants. The infringement on citizens’ legitimate privacy interests is extremely minor, particularly when balanced against their equally legitimate interest in not being murdered. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong and historians will someday look back on NSA wiretaps as the first step down the slippery slope to dictatorship. I think, though, that the odds are much better that the United States will remain free and a number of its citizens will live longer lives than if the President had allowed ultra-libertarian scruples to complicate the task of defending liberty against terrorism.

BTW, for those who want to read the preceding through paranoid lenses, it is the 666th post to Stromata Blog.

New York’s Next Governor – In the Raw

The conventional wisdom – nay, the conventional certainty – is that Eliot Spitzer, currently attorney-general of New York State and favorite son of the big league media, will become governor on January 1, 2007, after handily defeating a Republican placeholder. I have no grounds for doubting that forecast, so, for the benefit of my friends in a state where I used to live and work, let me pass along this glimpse of Mr. Spitzer in action.

Last April, the attorney general announced on television that he would soon be bringing criminal charges against Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, chairman and CEO of insurance giant AIG. Of various alleged accounting gimmicks employed by the company, he declared, “The evidence is overwhelming that these were transactions created for the purpose of deceiving the market. We call that fraud. It is deceptive. It is wrong. It is illegal.”

Seeking to palliate the Spitzer assault, AIG fired Mr. Greenberg. He had defenders, however, one of whom wrote, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed,

Something has gone seriously awry when a state attorney general can go on television and charge one of America’s best CEOs and most generous philanthropists with fraud before any charges have been brought, before the possible defendant has even had a chance to know what he personally is alleged to have done, and while the investigation is still under way.

In today’s Journal, we learn what happened next.

After reading my op-ed piece, Mr. Spitzer tried to phone me. I was traveling in Texas but he reached me early in the afternoon. After asking me one or two questions about where I got my facts, he came right to the point. I was so shocked that I wrote it all down right away so I would be sure to remember it exactly as he said it. This is what he said:

“Mr. Whitehead, it’s now a war between us and you’ve fired the first shot. I will be coming after you. You will pay the price. This is only the beginning and you will pay dearly for what you have done. You will wish you had never written that letter.”

No doubt a denial will be forthcoming from the attorney-general’s office, but the writer, John C. Whitehead, is a rather credible figure: He used to be chairman of Goldman Sachs and now heads the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. He has no visible motive for smearing Mr. Spitzer.

As for Mr. Spitzer’s truthfulness, it’s interesting to note that, after his confident and vehement denunciation of Mr. Greenberg’s conduct, he quietly let it be known, just after Thanksgiving, that he does not plan to file any charges. The evidence touted as “overwhelming” in April apparently wasn’t really there.

Prisoner’s Return

The connection to politics may be only tangential, but OpinionJournal Political Diary (free today; normally $3.95 a month) says that The Prisoner, the quintessential 1960’s paranoia drama, will be returning to TV.

In the original 1967 version, Patrick McGoohan played Prisoner No. 6, a former secret agent who is kidnapped to a strange seaside village where everyone is known only by a number and where he is told that “by hook or by crook” the reasons for his resignation as an agent will be extracted from him. For 17 surreal episodes, the series explored profound issues of privacy, individualism and mind control. . . .

The British magazine Broadcast reports that the Sky One channel has commissioned eight new episodes of the series. Executive producer Damien Timmer says they will deal “with themes such as paranoia, conspiracy and identity crisis.” The episodes will be partly written by Bill Gallagher, a creator of the BBC series “Conviction,” an edgy police drama about vigilante behavior in society.

To my mind, The Prisoner was much more about style than substance. The show was imbued with Mr. McGoohan’s quirky brand of libertarianism (he did much of the writing as well as being the star), but it wasn’t a preachy tract on privacy and civil liberties. I much fear that a 2006 version will sell the original’s birthright for a pot of message. Here’s hoping that I’m wrong.

Your Own Canadian Election

80Soft.com is the only company, so far as I know, that produces computer games about parliamentary elections. Now that Canada is in the midst of another campaign, Prime Minister Forever – Canada 2006 has appeared, the latest in the oddly named series that has also covered recent elections in Australia, Britain, British Columbia and Germany. Comparing it to its predecessor of 2½ years ago, one sees a lot of worthwhile augmentations: minor parties (12 parties in all, with minors ranging from the Greens to the Christian Heritage), a long list of potential endorsers (major newspapers, business and labor groups, grass roots advocates of narrow causes) offering differing benefits (momentum, money, foot soldiers), a variety of forms of advertising, more detailed geographical differentiation (Ontario, for instance, is split into four regions, Quebec into three) and sundry lesser features. With just a little effort, one can customize game elements (e. g., by adding new endorsers, advertising options, key issues or special events) or create entirely new scenarios. The 2006 version comes with recreations of the 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2004 Canadian contests, as well as the current one, giving masochistic Conservatives a variety of frustrations to endure. All of this costs only $18.95 in Canadian money, which is very nearly the equivalent of free.

I haven’t yet had time to play a complete game, though I’ll certainly try to get in a couple before January 23rd. Regarding the outcome of the real life version, I have little optimism. As was readily predictable, Paul Martin’s Liberal Party has adopted Gerhard Schröder’s anti-American hysteria, reinforced by appeals to the most scoundrelly form of patriotism. As David Warren observes,

To be fair, Mr Martin and cronies have more reasons to cling, than the enjoyment of power itself. For if even a minority Conservative government can be formed, there may be three-party agreement to launch corruption inquiries that go far beyond the scope of the Gomery Commission. Billions upon billions are spent annually in other unaudited programmes, crying out for review. Remember this each time the Liberals sound desperate.

The OpinionJournal Political Diary (have I mentioned that it’s a mere $3.95 a month?) has more on Liberal anti-Americanism and the winding tendrils of the party’s corruption:

America-bashing helped to re-elect Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder when they were in tight re-election contests in France and Germany a few years back, and it now appears Canada’s Liberal Party prime minister, Paul Martin, is taking a page out of their playbook. He took advantage of the recent Montreal climate conference to lecture the United States to heed a “global conscience” and adopt strict standards in fighting global warming. This despite the fact Canada has a proportionally worse record than the U.S. on controlling greenhouse gas emissions [nearly twice as rapid a rise since 1990 – ETV].

His swipes at the U.S. in the run-up to Canada’s January 23 election elicited a sharp response from U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, who told an Ottawa audience that incessant criticism of the U.S. could eventually damage the close relationship between the two countries. “Canada never has to tear the United States down to build itself up,” he said. “It may be smart election politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner. But it’s a slippery slope and all of us should hope it doesn’t have a long-term impact on our relationship.”

Mr. Martin seized on the remarks by the U.S. diplomat to retort: “That our friends do not like what we say – well, c’est la vie. I’m going to defend Canada and I’m right on softwood lumber and I’m right on climate change and I won’t let anybody tell me that I should not defend my country.”

It’s worth noting, however, that Mr. Martin has not been that eager to defend all Canadians. Chief among them is Maurice Strong, his former patron and until recently a top United Nations official who has been implicated in the oil-for-food scandal. Mr. Strong was also a key architect of the unworkable Kyoto treaty on global warming.

Canadian journalist Judi McLeod reports that Mr. Strong “has been missing in action” in this election campaign “and you can safely bet” that will continue to be the case until the actual vote. You can also safely bet that if Mr. Martin continues to bash the U.S. over Kyoto, he can expect return fire over his ties to Mr. Strong.

I doubt that the last bet is all that safe. The prime minister and his media megaphones will doubtless denounce criticism of Mr. Strong’s ties to Saddam Hussein as another instance of un-Canadian activities.

Despite hopeful polls showing, for instance, that the Conservatives actually lead the Liberals, however narrowly, outside Quebec (which the separatist Bloc Québécois will sweep) and that 58 percent of the voters think that it’s “time for a change”, I doubt that it will occur to enough to them that the way to get change is not to vote for the status quo. The Schröder strategy worked once in Germany and almost repeated its success. Hence, I am psychologically prepared for another victory of the kleptocrats, whether or not they can be vanquished on my computer screen.

Addenda: 1. A free demo version of the game is available from CBC.

2. The deadline for nominating candidates is January 2, 2006, and the confirmed list will be released on January 5th. As I understand it, 80Soft will then produce a patch with the final candidate list and (probably) other updates and modifications.

Quotes of the Day

James Taranto:

Color us embarrassed by the conduct of our fellow journalists in the kerfuffle over “domestic spying” – i.e., the National Security Agency’s wiretaps of people with links to al Qaeda. The only reason anyone is complaining about this is that there hasn’t been a major terrorist attack [within the United States] since 9/11. That is to say, the administration’s success (or luck) in terror-prevention has made it possible to be complacent. Someone with a mature sense of perspective would keep this in mind in evaluating reports about the tactics the government has used against the enemy.

Jeff Goldstein:

The Dems are putting themselves in a position just now to argue that what will no doubt be seen as legal technicalities—and those points are in dispute, even!—should have prevented [the President] from taking steps necessary to protect the homeland, steps that DID in fact protect us. And by extension, they will be arguing that as a group they would have worried more about a contentious legal battle over a now unworkable statute (getting warrants on automated phone chains—which it is not clear were even legally necessary, provided the AG gave notice—would have been impossible) than they would have about taking bold actions to protect the country, knowing that we are indeed at war

.

Not Only in Iraq

Freedom House yesterday released its annual survey of the status of political and civil liberties around the world. Its press release called 2005 “one of the most successful [years] for freedom” since the survey began 33 years ago. Of great interest is what has happened in the area where President Bush’s policies have led, according to the elite media, to unmitigated disaster:

The people of the Arab Middle East experienced a modest but potentially significant increase in political rights and civil liberties in 2005. . . . The global survey, “Freedom in the World,” shows that although the Middle East continues to lag behind other regions, a measurable improvement can be seen in freedom in several key Arab countries, as well as the Palestinian Authority. . . .

Although the countries of the Middle East lag behind other regions in areas such as adherence to democratic standards, independent media, the rights of women, and the rule of law, the past year witnessed modest positive trends. Lebanon experienced the most significant improvement; its status improved from Not Free to Partly Free due to major improvements in both political rights and civil liberties that followed the withdrawal of Syrian occupation forces. Elections exhibiting increased competition in Iraq, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories; the introduction of women's suffrage in Kuwait; and improvements in Saudi Arabia’s media environment are among other encouraging signs in the region.

The rest of the world didn’t do badly either.

On the whole, the state of freedom showed substantial improvement worldwide, with 27 countries and one territory registering gains and only 9 countries showing setbacks.

All of which, of course, has nothing to do with the policies of George W. Bush. Every Times reader knows that the world was, day by day in every way, getting better and better before the Bushitler invaded peaceable Saddamite Iraq.

Salus populi infima lex?

Cicero’s maxim “The safety of the people is the highest law” is easy to abuse, as no one with any streak of libertarianism in his soul will deny. That doesn’t make its opposite the apogee of wisdom, though some of President Bush’s opponents give the impression that they think so.

I’m confident that American courts are not going to interpret any law as suicidally prohibiting the interception of enemy communications in time of war, even if those communications are routed through the U.S. or sent to U.S. citizens, whether or not the government has obtained a wiretapping warrant. Maybe a warrant should be required for evidence thus gathered to be admissible in court, but that is a wholly different level of debate. So far as gathering information about plots to attack our country goes, a President who didn’t do what President Bush has done, viz., authorize the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails to and from terrorist organizations, would be appallingly irresponsible. If any inaction would merit impeachment, that would be it.

To the anti-war Left, none of these points is obvious. Instead, their wrath is unbridled. As Tom Smith parodies, a nuclear truck bomb going off in New York City “would be very, very bad. But what scares me more is a President who thinks his war powers include the right to monitor the communications of American citizens with suspected, so-called terrorists abroad. Now that's scary.” Senator Barbara Boxer (Loon-Cal.) has called the President’s action “an impeachable offense”, though she probably thinks that of the way he ties his shoes. More interesting is an objection from ex-Senator Tom Daschle, which suggests that the heart of the Left’s dislike of the surveillance program lies not in legalities but in its purpose.

Between 2002 and 2004, the White House notified me in classified briefings about NSA programs related to the war on terrorism. The briefers made clear they were not seeking my advice or consent, but were simply informing me about new actions. If subsequent public accounts are accurate, it now also appears the briefers omitted key details, including important information about the scope of the program.

Even with some of the more troublesome – and potentially illegal – details omitted, I still raised significant concern about these actions. As such, I am surprised and disappointed that the White House would now suggest that none of us informed of the program objected.

While Mr. Daschle doesn’t tell us specifically what “key details” were omitted, the only ones that could reasonably qualify as “key” are (i) that the intercepts included messages sent or received by American citizens and (ii) that they were conducted without obtaining search warrants. It appears, then, that the then-Senator was told something on the lines of either The NSA is tapping conversations and e-mails of non-U.S. terrorist suspects without getting warrants or The NSA is obtaining warrants to tap communications, possibly including some involving U.S. citizens. Whichever it was, Mr. Dasche, by his own account, objected.

Therefore, assuming that he is telling the truth (the Democratic National Committee says that he is a liar), he opposes not merely “spying” on Americans in wartime but also spying on non-Americans or spying carried out with judicial oversight. His root complaint seems to be against intelligence activities in general.

The speed and ferocity with which left-wing politicians and journalists assailed the President’s and NSA’s activities, combined with the eagerness of the New York Times to expose them, suggests that Mr. Daschle represents a strong strain of opinion, one that does not exactly condemn defending America but places almost every other value above salus populi. Of course, if the President had done as they wish and the upshot had been another 9/11, do you think that they would praise him for standing up for their convictions?

It will be years before we know whether the allegedly illegal NSA intercepts thwarted any terrorist attacks. That they did is certainly plausible, but, as I observed in a fictional trifle, a President gets little credit for catastrophes averted – and much blame if he slips up in any respect. Given the balance of incentives, a President who yearned for bien-pensant approval would leave the safety of his countrymen entirely to chance.

Further reading: Byron York, “Why Bush Approved the Wiretaps”:

In 2002, when the president made his decision, there was widespread, bipartisan frustration with the slowness and inefficiency of the bureaucracy involved in seeking warrants from the special intelligence court, known as the FISA court. Even later, after the provisions of the Patriot Act [soon to be filibustered into oblivion – ETV] had had time to take effect, there were still problems with the FISA court — problems examined by members of the September 11 Commission — and questions about whether the court can deal effectively with the fastest-changing cases in the war on terror.

People familiar with the process say the problem is not so much with the court itself as with the process required to bring a case before the court. “It takes days, sometimes weeks, to get the application for FISA together,” says one source. “It’s not so much that the court doesn’t grant them quickly, it’s that it takes a long time to get to the court. Even after the Patriot Act, it’s still a very cumbersome process. It is not built for speed, it is not built to be efficient. It is built with an eye to keeping [investigators] in check.” And even though the attorney general has the authority in some cases to undertake surveillance immediately, and then seek an emergency warrant, that process is just as cumbersome as the normal way of doing things.

The Wall Street Journal, “Thank You for Wiretapping”:

In the war on terror, the communications between terrorists in Frankfurt and agents in Florida are harder to track, and when we gather a lead the response often has to be immediate. As we learned on 9/11, acting with dispatch can be a matter of life and death. The information gathered in these wiretaps is not for criminal prosecution but solely to detect and deter future attacks. This is precisely the kind of contingency for which Presidential power and responsibility is designed.

What the critics in Congress seem to be proposing – to the extent they’ve even thought much about it – is the establishment of a new intelligence “wall” that would allow the NSA only to tap phones overseas while the FBI would tap them here. Terrorists aren’t about to honor such a distinction. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” before 9/11 “our intelligence agencies looked out; our law enforcement agencies looked in. And people could – terrorists could – exploit the seam between them.” The wiretaps are designed to close the seam.

George W. Bush, Statement on NSA Activities and Patriot Act Renewal
Presidential Press Conference, December 19, 2005
Protein Wisdom, “Catch Them, But Do Not Watch Them”
Protein Wisdom, “NSA Kerfuffle: Redux”
James S. Robbins, “Unwarranted Outrage”
Hugh Hewitt, “Presidential Power and the Surveillance of Foreign Powers Conspiring with United States Citizens”
John McIntyre, “Have the Democrats Walked into a Trap . . . Again?”
JustOneMinute, “NSA Eavesdropping – What Did Congress Know?”
Byron York, “Clinton Claimed Authority to Order No-Warrant Searches”
William Kristol & Gary Schmitt, “Vital Presidential Power”