America less safe. National threat advisory level: still yellow

Surely you all remember when, shortly after September 11, 2001, the administration launched its color-coded threat advisory level, yes? It was, in hindsight, one of the first and most obvious indications that the country was headed towards... well, where we are right now.

And here it is, six hours until the the Democrats' high sign to bomb-toting terrorists goes into effect, and the Department of Homeland Security has responded by... keeping the threat advisory level exactly where it was yesterday.

In a way, the events of the past several days have laid completely bare what most people have known for quite some time--that a substantial portion of America's post-9/11 national security apparatus has served almost no national security purpose of any kind. That it's been instead a poorly-calibrated mix of political handouts and propaganda fodder and kabuki theater. By now, most thinking people understand that the rainbow-alert system is useless to anybody who's not easily scared out of their minds. And most similarly understand that the grave-sounding warnings of the sort the administration is bleating off right now are only thinly (if at all) connected to the country's genuine threat environment. But for those out there who doesn't yet understand this, all they have to do is compare the rhetoric to the color-coded propagandometer, and they'll understand right away that at least one of the two (but in reality both) is seriously wrong. In other words, the administration isn't even competent enough to keep its national security lies straight.

It's because of things like this that I genuinely believe the FISA imbroglio could prove to be a watershed moment in post-9/11 American politics. That is, of course, if Democratic leaders continue to hold the line. As long as they do, the lesson will be that telling Americans they're generally safe--and proving to them that the policies of liberal Democrats are neither putting them at risk nor requiring them to cede their liberties to the government--isn't just sound, abstract policy. It's a political winner, as well.