Following in the footsteps of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, the New York Post has published yet another vitriolic attack on dissent in the wake of the London bombings:

Democratic attacks on the president, his party and his war policies come in two basic categories — essentially self-serving and insidiously subversive.

Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton indulged in a little of the former yesterday evening — indecently demanding even more money for New York before all of the bodies in London had been identified.

Howard Dean & Co., meanwhile, have been taking advantage of America’s historic impatience with foreign entanglements — to say nothing of the media’s fascination with the Iraqi butcher’s bill — to undercut the president’s moral authority to wage a just and necessary war.

In another time, that would be called giving aid and comfort to the enemy — or something a bit more harsh.

It is one thing to serve as the loyal opposition — but it is quite another to undermine an anti-terrorism policy that was ratified by the American people a scant seven months ago.

The assumptions built into this passage are staggering. It’s “subversive” to ask for more funds to protect New York? It’s treasonous to criticize the president’s policies? Democrats are obligated to preserve Bush’s “moral authority to wage a just and necessary war”? They must remain silent because Bush won re-election by the narrowest margin of any incumbent since Woodrow Wilson?

Countless Americans have died to protect our right to free speech, but the Post would casually throw it away for a momentary tactical advantage. Despicable.

Update 7/17: As Noumenon points out in comments, the Wall Street Journal also recently used the same tactic in a June 27 editorial (subscription required) — here’s the passage in question, which follows quotations about Iraq from Ted Kennedy and Chuck Hagel:

The polls show the American people are growing pessimistic about Iraq, and no wonder. They are being rallied against the cause by such statesmen as the two above. Six months after they repudiated the insurgency in a historic election, free Iraqis are continuing to make slow but steady political and military gains. Where the terrorists are gaining ground is in Washington, D.C.