HANNITY V. GINGRICH

I was amused yesterday driving home from the airport when I heard Sean Hannity interviewing Newt Gingrich and desperately trying to find areas of agreement with one of his heroes. Gingrich is decidedly pro-public debate on the NSA spying program, etc., while Sean is of the opinion that discussing such empowers the terrorists. Basically, the debate went thus:

HANNITY: But doesn't this inform the terrorists of our spy programs and thus hurt national security?

GINGRICH: They aren't stupid, Sean, and I'm happy to have them think, "If we pick up a cell phone or use the Internet, these guys will get us." I'd be glad to reduce them to using human couriers to relay their messages.

Gingrich then went on to declare himself a Constitutional scholar who believes and supports the rule of law no matter who the president is.

HANNITY: Well, we agree on more than I thought.

Then Sean went into a diatribe about how this program isn't nearly so invasive as the Echelon project "under Clinton" -- although he failed to note that it was initiated during the sixties for Cold War purposes, and that during Bill Clinton's administration it was submitted to and approved by the FISA court (unlike the NSA initiative under Bush).

Hilarious.