Sources and Methods

My greatest fear about the domestic spying hearings has been realized. One of our most important intelligence methods was compromised. It happened during this exchange:

BIDEN: Thank you very much. General, how has this revelation damaged the program?

I'm almost confused by it but, I mean, it seems to presuppose that these very sophisticated Al Qaida folks didn't think we were intercepting their phone calls.

GONZALES: Well, Senator, I would first refer to the experts in the Intel Committee who are making that statement, first of all. I'm just the lawyer. And so, when the director of the CIA says this should really damage our intel capabilities, I would defer to that statement. I think, based on my experience, it is true - you would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance.

But if they're not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget.

Let's take a look at some of the things we've lost because of that little slip:

• Nearly every day since Sept. 11, 2001, Our Leader has reminded Osama bin Laden that he's already attacked the United States. We depended on that reminder. It, and a couple of other measures like locking up brown people and putting dissenters on no-fly lists, allowed us defend the homeland on the cheap. Now that Osama's on to our game, we'll have to actually begin securing our ports and chemical factories until enough time has passed for him to forget the Inquisitor General's testimony.

• Our whole strategy for winning the Iraq Phase of the Eternal War to Resubjugate Brown People has been blown. It depended on the press airing only good news about Iraq--things like how we're building schools and flying the children we shoot to Germany for the best medical care available anywhere. Our thinking was that eventually, after all the good news crowded out the bad, the insurgents would forget that we were at war with them. Now, we'll have to start the process all over again.

• What's Dick going to do? He received a great deal of joy from retorturing brown people who forgot that they had already confessed to every crime imaginable. Now, he'll need to round up more people to torture, and we just don't have much more space available to house them.

• And let's not forget the domestic impact. Will Amy Sullivan realize that she's been through all this before and decide that Iran might not be the gravest threat we face as a nation?