This is a mostly terrific Wall Street Journal editorial, but take a look at this passage:

If the Gonzales critics are really worried about civil liberties, they might ponder the domestic political response to another 9/11. Do they really think Roosevelt’s internment camps and Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus were merely products of a less enlightened age, and that Americans wouldn’t respond to a dirty bomb explosion in a major city with mass detentions of men with Islamic surnames, closed borders, or worse? This civil-liberties catastrophe is precisely what “water-boarding” is trying to prevent.

Got it? “Closed borders” (Journal-speak for “enforcement of our immigration laws”) would be a “civil-liberties catastrophe” akin to FDR’s internment camps or Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus.

Get a grip, guys.

(Related posts and columns: “Why the Wall Street Journal is Snort-Worthy,” “Wall Street Journal Watch,” “The Wall Street Journal’s immigration foul,” “The Wall Street Journal: bordering on idiocy.”)

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