Now THIS is an assault on civil liberties

If Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are so concerned about the threat that government wiretapping poses to civil liberties, no doubt we can expect them to condemn Robert Mugabe's latest move to curtail said liberties in Zimbabwe.

Or perhaps not, given the Democrats' fondness for dictators other than the one they imagine occupies the White House, and the key role that the granddaddy of the American loony left, Jimmy Carter, played in bringing Mugabe to power – this superb piece by the Weekly Standard's James Kirchick is a fascinating account of a little-reported episode that's particularly shameful, even by the standards of the Carter years.