We think Reynolds is more liberal than people give him credit for. On the Lackawanna Six, he calls threats to treat the defendants as enemy combatants, "dirty pool." As to the performance of the Justice Department overall in U.S. terror cases, he says, "The Justice Department isn’t getting the kind of scrutiny that it deserves."

Reynolds gives passing reference to James Ujaama. We'll chime in here that the Government made a big deal out of Ujaama at the time of his arrest. He was charged him with providing material support to terrorists and with being a scout for an Al Qaeda terror camp. When he finally pleaded guilty a few days ago, all terrorism charges were dropped and he pleaded guilty to sending computers and money to a banned organization. Which Ujaama had acknowledged he had done all along.

Ultra-conservative Congressman James Sensenbrenner has grave doubts about Patriot Act II--and about repealing the sunset provisions of Patriot Act I. Even though we're still angry over his inclusion of the Feeney Amendment and Rave Act in the unrelated Amber Alert bill, we'll take all the support we can get. We'll take Bob Barr's help and Dick Armey's too.

Sometimes the labels we give one another don't do us proud. We're in for (at least) another year and a half of Bush and Ashcroft. We're far better off banding together with those with whom we don't always see eye-to-eye if we have any chance of holding their feet to the fire and making them disclose and account for the reductions they seek in our freedoms.