The Stasi Talking Points

Eric Muller has begun the work of compiling the prostrationist response to the revelation of the NSA's secret, illegal domestic spying. I would advise against reading Internment Girl's take on the matter without having an enema or at least drinking some ipecac beforehand. Writing vomitous pseudo-Soviet bilge is, I think, an unavoidable side-effect of Malkin's well-known superpower, i.e., the ability to complete massive (if instantly discredited) research projects at light speed.

Let's check in with some of prostrationism's other stalwarts. National Review's "journalist" Byron York wonders if news of COINTELPRO redux will spur an investigation...of the officials who leaked to the New York Times. Elsewhere, York puts two and two together:

If you have any doubts that today's New York Times story on "secret" surveillance by the National Security Agency influenced the Senate vote on the Patriot Act extension, at least to the extent of giving some Democrats a cover for their vote to filibuster the Act, just look at a speech given today on the floor of the Senate by New York Democrat Charles Schumer [quote from Schumer follows].

Let's get this straight: the Senate takes news that the administration has wantonly, criminally violated the civil liberties of American citizens as a point of evidence against trusting the administration not to abuse its powers and in favor of curtailing the powers it has abused. The problem is, what, exactly? That senators finally objected to a police state in sufficient numbers to halt its expansion, or that accurate journalism prompted these senators to object to a police state? York would not be as much of an embarrassment to himself and his publication if he were to shit his pants on live TV.

Powerline's John Hinderaker (or Hindrocket, as he called himself until mean liberals started making fun of him) is one step manlier than York: Assrocket does not ask if there should be an investigation of the leak; he demands that we "send these guys to jail."

Der Mann mit dem Hut Roger L. Simon meanwhile, publicly declares his bottomless idiocy, not for the first time. The New York Times reported the story (1) because the paper is in financial jeopardy and (2) because

It was all they could do in the face of the Iraqi election. With the risk of that being a huge success (and it was - at least for now), they had to do something to salvage their position without seeming to be against democracy.

Unfortunately for Simon's interpretation of the disclosure, the New York Times sat on the story for more than a year. Which means that they could have released it prior to the 2004 election. So the idea that publishing the story is attributable to nothing but greed and inchoate desire to damage the administration's credibility is literally incredible. To call such a belief irrational would be to compliment it excessively. What Simon suffers from is not irrationality, but, to coin a phrase, Anti-Bush Derangement Syndrome.

UPDATE: Two plus two equals five.