Last night I watched the State of the Union at a Living Liberally event in NYC. There were probably between 150-200 people there, including about a dozen Young Republicans. It was a very vocal crowd, with a lot of hoots, hollers, insults, and rebuttals thrown at President Bush with each spurious claim he made.

What was incredibly interesting is that the lines of the speech that got the loudest boos and shouts was Bush’s lines on retroactive immunity and the Protect America Act.

This is remarkable in large part because the press has not covered this debate in any detail. The traditional media has not called out the Bush administration for why it wants retroactive immunity for the big telecoms, nor the impact of what immunity would have on the rule of law. Nonetheless, the people in this room and people around the country know the stakes in this fight. The American people recognize that the Bush administration’s assault on the rule of law could have a greater negative impact than anything else — more than the war in Iraq, more than the disastrous Bush economy.

It’s reassuring to know that even if the Republican Party, many elected Democrats, and most of the media voices that could draw attention to these critical issues don’t care much for the defense of the Constitution, the American people do.

Cross posted at the CREDO Blog.