Credit where credit is due

David Tell of the Weekly Standard acknowledges the contributions of two liberal Democrats, Diane Feinstein and Joseph Biden, to the debate over the Patriot Act. At a Senate hearing, Biden stated that “the tide of criticism” being directed against the Patriot Act “is both misinformed and overblown;” that “I stand by my support” of that law; and that the Ashcroft Justice Department has “done a pretty good job in terms of implementing” the law’s provisions. At the same hearing, Feinstein said that, although she has received more than 20,000 complaints about the Act, “I have never had a single [verified] abuse of the Patriot Act reported to me. My staff emailed the ACLU and asked them for instances of actual abuses. They emailed back and said they had none.” Feinstein concluded that the attacks on the Patriot Act stem from “substantial uncertainty. . .about what this bill actually does do, and perhaps some ignorance.” Amen