OPINION:
One of the most offensive aspects of the FISA memo release Friday was the realization that despite dire warnings from Democrats and activist pundits in the media, there appeared to be no overriding national security concern with the information President Trump declassified allowing for the public release of the memo.
In other words: Democrats and their pals in the media lied about why they didn’t want the memo released.
And it was a pretty awful lie at that. Their lie framed the discussion of the FISA memo in the starkest terms: If you favor transparency and a public airing of the events that triggered the Mueller/Russia probe, you are reckless and irresponsible with regard to the national security of our country.
The way Democrats told it, the Republicans and the president were more interested in their own political narrative than they were in protecting our country. And, as it turns out, this was nonsense.
The fact that Democrats played the “National Security” card to protect their own political narrative is, frankly, worse than what they accused Republicans of.
Most Americans believe that there really are some things that should be kept secret from us, for the sake of our country’s security. By claiming that something as innocuous as this memo rises to that level makes the American people skeptical for the next time we are told that something must be kept from us for national security’s sake.
We are, by nature, a trusting yet skeptical nation. We want to believe our elected officials and government appointees are working to keep us safe and when they work in secret they are doing so for our own good and not to further their own political ends. But, we also crave transparency so that we can be sure to keep our government in check and ensure our elected officials and people working within the government are adhering to the Constitutional guidelines they are sworn to protect.
That delicate balance only works if when we are warned that something must stay secret for the good of our national security, those warnings are justified. In this case, they were not.
When the boy cries wolf once too often, well, that’s when sheep get slaughtered.
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