Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement argued skillfully before the Supreme Court on April 28 for President Bush’s claim that the military can grab any American suspected of being an "enemy combatant," anywhere, at any time, and hold him incommunicado for months, years, even for life, with no chance to see a lawyer or tell a court that he is an innocent civilian.

"We did not know an attack was coming because, for nearly a decade, our government had blinded itself to its enemies." So said Attorney General John Ashcroft in his April 13 testimony to the 9/11 commission. He accused commission member Jamie Gorelick of "flawed legal reasoning" in a 1995 memorandum in which, as Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general, she had helped raise a legalistic "wall [that] left intelligence agents afraid to talk with criminal prosecutors or agents."

The apparent success of terrorists in scaring the Spanish electorate into replacing one of President Bush’s closest allies with a strident Bush critic is not merely a disaster for Bush. It is a disaster for the United States, and for whoever wins the presidency in November. Terrorists may seek to use similar massacres to swing our own elections, although that might be more likely to elect Bush than John Kerry. And the rising tide of European appeasement of Al Qaeda and its ilk will threaten to isolate America for years to come.