With a heavy dose of irony, Noemie Emery observes the effect of Karl Rove's machinations behind the scenes. Buried in the middle of this piece is a single money graf.
Bush now has three gifts: (l) he has an out, in case there's another attack on the homeland (he tried, but his hands were tied by the Times and the Democrats); (2) he has still more sound bites--"We killed the Patriot Act!"--to add the pile that he had already, and (3), he has the chance to draw still more distinctions between the party of force and of public security; and the party that nitpicks, that is too legalistic, and that somehow always gives the benefit of the doubt to the criminal and/or the accused. In a showdown like this, put your cash on the party of force and security. Willie Horton was not a play on the race card, but a metaphor for the larger use-of-force issue. Does anyone doubt that if Dukakis were president when Saddam Hussein crossed the border, Kuwait and perhaps Saudi Arabia would be permanent parts of Iraq? Remember the Homeland Security Act in the 2002 midterms?
Say what you will about the piece as a whole (I think it's not really up to the usual – or even the Weekly – standard), actions have consequences, and these three items are reasonably foreseeable consequences of the whole to-do over "domestic spying".
I think the Democrats are in gote.
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