Strange bedfellows

Along with all the Democrats who object to the president's warrantless wiretaps, you will find Grover Norquist, Mr. Rich-Americans-Should-Never-Pay-Any-Tax, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, the "managing director of the hard core right" (as the Nation magazine called him). In fact, Mr. Norquist has teamed up with Larry Diamond, a Democrat from the Hoover Institution (isn't that an oxymoron?), who is also a solid supporter of the war on terror (whatever that is), to object to what they both see as a major violation of American civil liberties.

Mr. Norquist's point is that only the president's supporters have the credibility to challenge him when he goes off the rails on civil liberties (or, presumably, anything else). I'm afraid he's correct; the president and his advisers simply don't listen to anybody outside the charmed circle, which has bothered me about them from day one and it gets worse as the world outside diverges farther and farther from the reality they seem to accept. So on this subject only, I'll wish Mr. Norquist good luck. We need all the help we can get.

This was all written up yesterday by a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer (for all my complaints about that newspaper, an amazing amount of good investigative reporting gets printed there); the full article is very interesting and I recommend it.