Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review, asks, “What does it say for democracy that half of the American population is unable to draw a rational conclusion from unambiguous facts?”

He’s referring to recent polls like the New York Times/CBS poll where “sixty-four percent of the respondents have concerns about losing civil liberties as a result of anti-terrorism measures put in place by President Bush. Yet, 53
percent approve of spying without obtaining court warrants ‘in order to reduce the threat of terrorism.’”

Blaming the media for “playing along with the Bush administration” by framing the question “as a trade-off between civil liberties and protection from terrorists” instead of “explaining this basic truth,” he asks, why do they “enable the Bush administration to escape accountability for illegal behavior by putting false and misleading choices before the people?”

“Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and American civil liberties will disappear into a thirty year war that will bankrupt the United States.”

Read it all.

This post was written by Mary Mancini