James Taranto of Opinion Journal takes a swipe at the New York Times (they are such an easy target):

"Not long ago, Karl Rove upset many liberals by suggesting that they aren't serious about fighting terrorism. Among those taking offense were the editorialists at the New York Times, who declared on June 25:

The president and his supporters continue to duck behind 9/11 whenever they feel pressure about what is happening in Iraq. The most cynical recent example was Karl Rove's absurd and offensive declaration this week that conservatives and liberals had different reactions to 9/11.

Today the Times weighs in against expanding the USA Patriot Act to allow terror investigators to use a procedure called an administrative subpoena to gather information. We gather that conservatives by and large support this proposal while liberals oppose it, which itself would be evidence that Rove was right. But our jaw dropped when we read this paragraph:

The bill's defenders note that administrative subpoenas are already allowed in other kinds of investigations. But these are generally in highly regulated areas, like Medicaid billing. The administrative subpoena power in the new bill would apply to anything the F.B.I. deemed related to alleged foreign intelligence or terrorism, and could, in practice, give the F.B.I. access to almost any private records it wanted.

So in the Times' view, it's worth making some compromises on civil liberties when something really weighty is at stake, like Medicaid funding. But terrorism just doesn't rise to that level of importance."