Michael Ramirez is a right-leaning political cartoonist for the ostensibly right-leaning Investor's Business Daily, and today he really ticked me off.

The editorial cartoon comes via USA Today and its Friday wrap-up of political cartoons (Ramirez's is number 5).

I have reproduced the editorial cartoon below, pursuant to my rights of "criticism" and "comment" under 17 U.S.C. 107.

Ramirez's cartoon seems to suggest that, if we don't expand spying authority the way the president wants -- which is to say, in a way that removes or restricts judicial oversight -- then we will suffer an attack. This syllogism is just as incorrect backward as it is forward: if we haven't been attacked, then our expansion of spying authority must have worked. In both cases, the logic is flawed.

The statement "if we don't expand our spy authority, we will be attacked" is flawed because it fails to take into account the facts that (1) we can be attacked even if we do expand our surveillance powers; and (2) expansion of our spying authority doesn't necessarily mean that we will be preventing attacks. The administration has refused to release any information about specific terror plots that may or may not have been foiled due to warrantless wiretapping; the American people are expected to trust the administration's assertion that that has been the case.

Beyond logic, the Bush administration has been trying to tell us that this is a new conflict that judges aren't qualified to pass rulings on, and thus the administration -- which is the expert in all matters relating to terrorism -- should have the last word on the regulation of its own wiretapping powers.

It's very disingenuous to suggest, as Ramirez does, that an expansion of spying powers is necessary to prevent another attack. We have no idea that this is the case because we, the American people, are being purposefully kept in the dark about the activities being done by our government. Ramirez's cartoon encourages tyranny, which, strangely enough, I thought this "war on terrorism" was supposed to fight?