Hoocoodanode?

That’s become the catch phrase amongst economics blogs when something that they have anticipated for years happens and everyone is shocked…simply shocked!

Well here’s a hoocoodanode? about the warantless wiretapping under Bush. At the time Congress was reworking FISA, many legal and security experts didn’t trust that it was being used in the way that the Administration claimed and pointed out there were many provisions that didn’t make sense unless they were doing undirected data mining on all citizens.

What a surprise, that was exactly what was going on! Constant surveillance on journalists, flagging all calls under two minutes, God knows what else. I’m sure we’re all in there somehow, and I’m sure all the Serious People will come out and express disbelief and anger that they were tricked. The same people that were assuring us that the reworking of FISA (and accompanied immunity) was the ultimate in governance because it was bipartisan, and characterized the many outcries from professional security experts as worrywarts. The same that shot down the people that warned we were torturing, because we would never do that — despite the fact that it was the top military lawyers that were saying we were. And of course these same people that are so shocked and willfully blind for so long, are going to come out and say none of this should be prosecuted because that’s just vindictive and has nothing to do with justice or governance. After all, we should give the government the benefit of the doubt no matter how obvious things are, because, Hoocoodanode?