Who's Arrogant?

It seems Ted Kennedy has completely forgotten just how absolutely irrelevant he is becoming. But now, he has he nerve to call Alberto Gonzalez "arrogant" because Gonzalez hasn't given Kennedy the kind of answers Kennedy wants to his unending list of gotcha questions. I suppose Gonzalez's alleged arrogance stems from the fact that he didn't give Kennedy the "right" answers.

But the real crux of Kennedy's complaints are that Gonzalez might actually be in favor of using coercive means to extract information from terrorists. And being the enabler of the bad guy that he always has been, Kennedy feels that terrorists are entitled to the same protections as domestic criminals. He seems to ignore the fact that the terrorists possess information that if timely extracted, can help us interdict future terrorist operations. He also seems to forget that such future operations are designed to create an unrecoverable catastrophe in America. If he still doesn't get that, he needs to resign his seat and return to the philandering and alcoholism that he does best.

The thing that gets me is this incomprehensible belief held by many on the left that terrorists' interests in remaining unmolested are somehow greater than the rights of thousands of innocent Americans who don't wish to be blown apart. The Democrats call this "principled". I call it the enabling of evil, because whether Kennedy and his ilk realize it or not, the terrorists exploit our civility. It is as much one of their weapons as a bomb or a gun.

And it brings to mind the critical question which I answered in my ethics classes of years ago in college: If you were in Europe in World War Two, hiding Jews in your home to shuffle them to safety and the Nazis came knocking on your door looking for them, would you, A) turn them in, because you do not want to be a liar, or B) tell a lie to save their lives (and possibly your own)? I'll tell you that the only right answer is B. It leaves you with a clear conscience, lie or not, and you fulfill your obligation to your charges, the Jews you are helping, rather than betraying them to remain faithful to some lesser ideal. Because murderers are not entitled to truth or any other courtesy if they will use it for evil.

Ted Kennedy can pretend to be as principled as he likes. But his uncompromised "principles" may get us killed. And to me, that's arrogance.