THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D SEE CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS ELIMINATED IN THE NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY. And they were right! “New rules allow investigators to hold domestic-terror suspects longer than others without giving them a Miranda warning, significantly expanding exceptions to the instructions that have governed the handling of criminal suspects for more than four decades. The move is one of the Obama administration’s most significant revisions to rules governing the investigation of terror suspects in the U.S. And it potentially opens a new political tussle over national security policy, as the administration marks another step back from pre-election criticism of unorthodox counterterror methods.”

That criticism was just for the benefit of the rubes, apparently. Hey, rube!

UPDATE: A reader emails:

And regarding rubes: yes, those on the right who supported Obama, and those on the far-left who believed in Obama’s campaign promises, were clearly rubes. But the rank and file Democrats who are now silent on Libya? I think it’s important we call them what they are: liars.

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that many times over the last eight years, I would see the intensity of the moral outrage on the left over Iraq and say to myself, “Gee, these people sure do feel strongly about this. What if they’re right about it?” This caused me many times to reexamine my reasons for supporting the war, and my conscience. We now know, however, that it was all quite simply bullshit. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. I must admit, I’m feeling a bit like a rube myself.

Yes, taking them seriously was a mistake.