Common Sense

A lot of people are mad about last week’s NY Times story about the government tracking international banking records. Rep. Peter King is calling for investigations as to whether the Times has committed treason, the House was debating a resolution today chastising the Times for printing the story; my own senator John “Box Turtle” Cornyn was going to introduce similar resolution in the Senate. Press Secretary Tony Snow connected 9/11 to it and the vice president called it “offensive.”

The problems is, the program isn’t really that secret. Anyone who has heard the president praise the success of the financial tracking program over the years knew about it. Anyone who has read The Price of Loyalty, the Ron Suskind book about Paul O’Neill’s time at Treasury knew about it. O’Neill was a principal on the NSC and part of the president’s war council. The book mentions that O’Neill had help conceive the program in the days after 9/11 as a smart way to go after the terrorists so that we wouldn’t be limited to military options.

Indeed, as reported by Countdown Wednesday night, the organization that collects the information used by the US government has a Web site and a magazine where they are pretty open about helping to stop “illegal activities.” Anybody with a half a brain could figure out that using the traditional banking structure would be a bad idea if you are a terrorist. That’s why the mob launders money, after all.

This is very much manufactured outrage. Republicans are mad because they can’t keep a secret and everytime they try to do something that seems improper, they get caught. It’s not their fault, though, it is the person who caught them. They are also hoping to gain from this. In a political climate that is all about energizing your base, what could be better than fomenting them into a rage about hurting America by telling the truth.

Blaming the foundation of American liberty for your own mistakes, that’s what I call “disgraceful” and “offensive.”