Each time, the intelligence community acted to protect its own and curbed the liberal president’s inclinations. But now, under Obama, the Democrats will finally have their way and appoint a liberal zealot to head the agency. Panetta will, presumably, curb such practices as waterboarding, rendition and warrantless wiretapping. So we won’t gather much intelligence – but our spies will dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. Over at Justice, Obama is naming four liberals to staff the agency, each determined to rein in effective intelligence-gathering

Bush’s legacy shows one clear achievement: He kept us safe after 9/11. Now his successor’s policies are about to eradicate that singular achievement. The liberals will, of course, all cheer these appointments and the policies they’ll pursue once in office, but these appointments make it frighteningly more likely that we will, indeed, be hit again.