Romney and the Wiretaps

Much more consequential than Mitt Romney's troubled relationship with anecdotes, is this Wired story about Romney's approach to illegal surveillance issues:

I'm pointing this out because it makes me wonder how the debate over national security is going to shake out as the presidential election proceeds. It sounded as if the Romney team was adopting the Bush administration's approach of mis-characterizing the placement of minimal checks on the system as harmful to national security.

Well, I don't "wonder" how it's going to proceed on the Republican side. Whoever wins the nomination is going to mischaracterize the placement of minimal checks on the system as harmful to national security. The question is whether the other candidate will aggressively fight on these issues -- not just defensively pleading "no no mean republicans please stop saying I hate America" and hoping to shift the debate to jobs and the economy but actually going on the attack about the mess Bush has made of our constitution. I'm not especially optimistic, but I try to keep my hopes up.