ANOTHER MOMENTARY OUTBREAK OF REPUBLICAN CIVIL LIBERTARIANISM.

So Obama continued the ancient tradition of spying on our allies and found Netanyahu conspiring to fuck up the Iran deal with some Congressmen. Right sport, say I, but conservatives pretend it's triple #Benghazi. The slightly-less-duplicitous among them, such as Jazz Shaw of Hot Air, even while huffing that "this smells of a Nixonian enemies list" (how dare you allow your surveillance of Mr. Big to reveal that my clients were his flunkies!) has to admit that "we spy on our friends and our friends spy on us. Nobody likes it very much, but it’s the way the world works." The real shitheels don't bother. (For the record, I'm much less exercised by spying on Angela Merkel et alia than I am by spying on U.S. citizens.)

And in a special category are those who actually seem to think Obama invented it, like Even-Steven bipartisan  Ron Fournier: "Democrats," he thundertweets, "If you allow your guy to do this, no complaints when the next GOP POTUS runs amuck with Obama precedent." I expect we're also not supposed to complain when President Cruz spends three trillion dollars fucking up the Middle East some more, because Polk invaded Mexico in 1847 and he was a Democrat.

Anyway, enjoy this latest libertarian moment while it lasts, which is until they all remember it's time to spy on Muslim-Americans.

UPDATE. I think I'm funnier, but you should probably still read Glenn Greenwald on the subject instead of me. Oh, you already read mine? Well, still go ahead. (I didn't know that about Jane Harman; it's very disappointing.)

UPDATE 2. It's kinda fun to watch Jonathan S. Tobin chasing his own tail at Commentary, but nothing else in it can top the beginning:

The unfortunate implications of Edward Snowden’s leaks of security information have been many...

As often, I suspect a lot of these things are written on a bet.