Ethics

Bush Helps ACLU

By Ed Brayton

Indirectly, at least. It turns out that ACLU membership has doubled since Bush took office, obviously a response to the increasing threat to our civil liberties.

"I think it's very much a reflection of the fact that there was a very aggressive assault on civil liberties," said ACLU national deputy executive director Dorothy Ehrlich. "Over the past seven years, many Americans felt their own cherished values were under attack, and they didn't want to sit by."

The ACLU counted about 250,000 members in the final year of Bill Clinton's presidency. Today, the organization has about 500,000 card-carriers, 2,500 of them in Utah.

Every cloud has a silver lining, I suppose.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on May 17, 2008 (boomark / email).