Much more consequential than Mitt Romney’s troubled relationship with anecdotes, is this Wired story about Romney’s approach to illegal surveillance issues:

I’m pointing this out because it makes me wonder how the debate over national security is going to shake out as the presidential election proceeds. It sounded as if the Romney team was adopting the Bush administration’s approach of mis-characterizing the placement of minimal checks on the system as harmful to national security.

Well, I don’t “wonder” how it’s going to proceed on the Republican side. Whoever wins the nomination is going to mischaracterize the placement of minimal checks on the system as harmful to national security. The question is whether the other candidate will aggressively fight on these issues — not just defensively pleading “no no mean republicans please stop saying I hate America” and hoping to shift the debate to jobs and the economy but actually going on the attack about the mess Bush has made of our constitution. I’m not especially optimistic, but I try to keep my hopes up.

Former CIA agent John Kiriakou’s been speaking out against torture so, naturally, the government’s now seeking legal methods of shutting him up. The good news is that we haven’t yet reached the point where politically inconvenient types are just sent off to Gitmo without charges and then tortured ’till they confess to something.

Obviously, a lot of neocon types are down in the dumps about the NIE on Iran. Not to worry, though, AEI’s Charlie Szrom, writing for The Weekly Standard and citing the time-honored conservative precept that “everything strengthens the case for missile defense boondoggles” explains that the report strengthens the case for missile defense boondoggles. And, indeed, all indications are that the system would work better against non-existent Iranian nuclear missiles than against the real kind, so in that sense Szrom makes a strong case.

Bush administration lies to 9/11 Commission, says it’s turned over all “documents,” “reports” and “information” related to the interrogation of al-Qaeda members while withholding videotapes:

Mr. Kean, a Republican and a former governor of New Jersey, said of the agency’s decision not to disclose the existence of the videotapes, “I don’t know whether that’s illegal or not, but it’s certainly wrong.” Mr. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, said that the C.I.A. “clearly obstructed” the commission’s investigation.

But look, people, get real: Al Gore said something that, if deliberately misconstrued, could be understood as claiming that he invented the internet. Think about it.