Good article today from OpinionJournal.com:

'Mass Murder' Foiled
A terror plot is exposed by the policies many American liberals oppose.

"This wasn't supposed to happen today," a U.S. official told the Washington Post of the arrests and terror alert. "It was supposed to happen several days from now. We hear the British lost track of one or two guys. They had to move." Meanwhile, British antiterrorism chief Peter Clarke said at a news conference that the plot was foiled because "a large number of people" had been under surveillance, with police monitoring "spending, travel and communications."

Let's emphasize that again: The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs.

And almost on political cue yesterday, Members of the Congressional Democratic leadership were using the occasion to suggest that the U.S. is actually more vulnerable today despite this antiterror success. Harry Reid, who's bidding to run the Senate as Majority Leader, saw it as one more opportunity to insist that "the Iraq war has diverted our focus and more than $300 billion in resources from the war on terrorism and has created a rallying cry for international terrorists."

Hmm, "spending, travel, and communications." Spending. Travel. Communications. Patriot Act anyone? NSA surveillance of international calls anyone? Treasury Dept. analysis of international bank transfers anyone? Helllllllo? Liberals?

And how about Harry "we killed the Patriot Act" Reid using the circumstance of a successful effort to stop a terrorist plot to complain the Bush Administration isn't focusing enough on the terrorism threat? What a genius!

Voters must remember this in November. The Democrats are simply not serious about national defense and the threat of Islamic terrorism.