The Lost Year

McConnell Watch

Greg Miller writes in the Los Angeles Times: "The nation's top intelligence official drew sharp criticism from Capitol Hill and government watchdog groups Thursday for disclosing previously classified details about the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program."

Here's the transcript of a remarkable interview Mike McConnell gave to the El Paso Times. (See the "Democracy and Death" section of yesterday's column for more background.)

Eric Lichtblau writes in the New York Times: "Mr. McConnell, who took over as the country's top intelligence official in February, warned that the public discussion generated by the Congressional debate over the wiretapping bill threatened national security because it would alert terrorists to American surveillance methods.

"'Now part of this is a classified world,' he said in the interview. 'The fact we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die.' . . .

"Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, said the interview 'was quite striking because he was disclosing more detail than has appeared anywhere in the public domain.'

"'If we're to believe that Americans will die from discussing these things,' Mr. Aftergood said, 'then he is complicit in that. It's an unseemly argument. He's basically saying that democracy is going to kill Americans.'"

Free Speech

The USA Today editorial board lectures Bush on free speech: "It's vital, of course, that the Secret Service protect the president from physical threats when he appears in public. And it's understandable that the White House wants to have the president speak without disruption from people who disagree with him. But it's important that cloistered presidents know that there are people who disagree with them, and there are disorderly conduct laws to deal with protesters who cross the line.

"Dissent is a bedrock of our system. The administration, with its penchant for secrecy and order, never quite gets that and repeatedly tries to draw the line too broadly. . . .

"If you profess to love 'the freedom for people to speak their minds,' . . . you have to assume you're not always going to love what they say. Instead of a lengthy manual on preventing and handling demonstrators, Bush's advance people need a refresher course on a somewhat older manual. It's called the Constitution of the United States."

Cartoon Watch

John Sherffius and Rex Babin on Bush and Vietnam; Mike Luckovich on how Iraq is like Terri Schiavo.