TALKLEFT RESPONDS to my post below on Ashcroft’s apparently nonexistent prison camps by saying:

What number should it take, 25, 100, 500? Should the number of beds at the first such facility be the determinative factor of whether it is a camp? Could it serve as a model for future facilities? If 50 such facilities were contemplated, would they be camps?

We don’t know if Ashcroft is planning camps or not. But if it looks like a duck…..

Well, at the moment, it doesn’t look like a duck, or even a duckling. It’s bad to imprison American citizens without due process, as I’ve said repeatedly. But that’s a far cry from the Ashcroft-is-planning-camps-for-us-all hysteria that has sprung up in response to Turley’s article, and which Turley’s article seems designed to inflame.

I’d rather live in a country that is too sensitive to such matters than one that is not sensitive enough, of course. But if you cry wolf — or even duck — too often, it won’t be that kind of a nation any more. Turley overstated his case, and the result is that the next time somebody raises the issue it will be harder to get it taken seriously.

For those who are really paranoid, of course, that could be part of the plan. . . .

UPDATE: Dan Perkins puts it well: “Reality is scary enough by itself these days.”