The latest attack on dissent comes from a Wall Street Journal editorial on January 7, which casually suggests that opponents of warrantless wiretaps want to help Al Qaeda. Its subtitle: “Bush critics seek war-powers loopholes to benefit terrorists.”

The text of the editorial includes a similar suggestion:

No one would suggest the President must get a warrant to listen to terrorist communications on the battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan. But what the critics are really insisting on here is that the President get a warrant the minute a terrorist communicates with an associate who may be inside in the U.S. That’s a loophole only a terrorist could love.

According to the WSJ, “only a terrorist could love” the position taken by the President’s opponents. This is unbelievably nasty stuff.

I’m continually stunned at how routine the smearing of dissent has become in our political debate. Most of the items I post on this subject are never mentioned anywhere else. Have we lost our capacity for outrage?

Update 1/17: Jon Henke has posted a trenchant comment on the very real phenomenon of “outrage inflation” that I want to highlight:

Have we lost our capacity for outrage?

No. There’s just too much to get to. It’s like sweeping the floor in a dirt hut. We’ll never get to the bottom.

I think it probably doesn’t help that, for the past few decades — and especially with the rise of the Permanent Campaign — outrage has become Standard Operating Procedure. When critics — from every side — are outraged at everything in sight, it becomes difficult to discern the outrageous from political differences.

There’s been outrage inflation; a decline in the buying power of outrage.

That is, I think, ultimately destructive to everybody involved.