>> Officials: Threat, powder sent to McCain office

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Liberals (who probably actually believe this) and leftists (who most certainly don't) think this argument is not only the best defense of America in the wars that confront us, they think it is the best way to defend their own actions -- actions which others can see are endangering our troops abroad and our citizens at home. In fact the argument that those who have declared war on the war policy are really defending America is the worst possible defense.

It is the worst possible defense because it violates the very foundation of our liberties, the social contract on which all our liberties depend.

We live in a democracy. That means we live under rules for adjudicating our differences both in peacetime and in war. Before all the laws that make us who we are is the primary fact that we are nation of laws. Breaking the law does not protect the law. Breaking national security laws betrays the nation; it does not defend it.

The government leakers who provided the Times with the information that won its reporter a Pulitzer prize, are conducting a war against the very system the Times is claiming to defend. This is an unacceptable way to dissent from national policy, and no excuse can be offered for it. It is an act of violence against our democracy and the Constitution which governs it.

If this were an illegal war; if it had been ratified by the American people; if the government was not concerned to justify its acts legally; if the representatives of the people -- the Congress of the United States -- were muzzled or the Congress itself dissolved; if the courts were closed, matters would be different. But they are not.

This is not an illegal war and the Administration has behaved in a far less peremptory manner in conducting it than, for example, the Clinton Administration in conducting the war in Bosnia, which was launched without authorization by Congress, yet was not made an object of outrage and a target of opportunity by the New York Times.

The removal of Saddam Hussein by force was called for by two presidents -- a Democrat and a Republican, and two acts of Congress -- in 1998 and 2002. It was authorized by majorities in both parties, and in both houses of Congress. It was authorized by a UN Security Council ultimatum, Resolution 1441, which gave Saddam Hussein until December 7, 2002 to fully disarm his arsenal of illegal weapons and report on their destruction "or face serious consequences." Saddam did neither.

The war that ensued and the policy that governed it was ratified by the American people in a national election in 2004 which returned George Bush to the presidency by a wider popular margin than any Democratic President has received since 1964. It was signal to Democrats to close ranks with the government in America's war with her enemies and provide united front in support of America's mission and her troops in Iraq. Democrats, as a party, have failed to do so. Some of its leaders like Jack Murtha are proclaiming America the world's greatest threat to the peace -- in the middle of a war, while our troops are in harm's way.

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