The punditocracy, both Obama supporters on the left and the useful idiots on the right, in an effort to convince those who worry about the NSA's data mining efforts and its indiscriminate collection of trillions of bits of information to just sit down and shut up, are either purposely hushing up a key factor or are utterly oblivious to the real danger this program represents.

The avowed purpose of the NSA's program is the same as the avowed purpose of any of our intelligence collection organs, which is the collection of information about the plans and capabilities of our nation's enemies.

I can't imagine that there is any American who doesn't support that goal, with the usual caveats regarding the respect for the 4^th Amendment rights of U.S. citizens.

But, as I noted on these pages just a few days ago, the same people who will define the word "terrorist" will be the same ones who will be defining the word "enemy."  And as you will recall, Barack Obama is fond of using the word "enemy" to define his domestic opponents.  And the most venomous response to perceived "enemies" is the Obama/Axelrod/Jarret attacks on his political opponents.  In an August 2012 article at Townhall.com Ann Coulter described the serial abuse of sealed records and the use of innuendo that Obama used against not only Republicans, but Democrats who opposed him in primary elections.

Given the current ability of the NSA to collect unimaginable masses of date, and then given specifics regarding what phone numbers/names/addresses and other variables to concentrate their efforts on, is there any doubt, in anyone's mind that the damage that is potentially destructive to Obama's political enemies would be of the same magnitude as the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombs?

Any military man, no matter which nation they defend, will all say the same thing.  Never plan on what you expect your enemy to do, but rather plan based on what they are capable of doing. 

Evidence indicates that Obama and his supporters are capable of destruction that would be considered the equivalent of carpet bombing by B-52's. 

His defenders, and the useful idiots who side with them, would probably ask "But how could he suggest to the NSA that they delve into records associated with only his political opponents?"  Normally this would be a valid question, if we had an honorable person in the White House. 

However, having a senior NSC staffer request any and all data on a particular individual, including the past five or ten years of traffic on the internet, phone records, tax records, sealed court records, and so on wouldn't exactly tax the capabilities of the NSA.  This would be particularly true if one of Obama's tame judges authorized it, as one did when one such judge authorized delving into the email accounts of James Rosen of FOX News.

Such attacks might not even be aimed at those who would be obvious Obama opponents.  They might be aimed at people like Governor Scott Walker, because Obama needs union support.  They might be aimed at others, such as Governor Nicky Haley or any governor of a right-to-work state.  If mindless Obama supporters were endangered in their own re-election campaigns, their opponents might be on the receiving end of an NSA "security" analysis.  If Obama wanted to insure that more of his mindless supporters were elected to Congress or the Senate, the same thing is possible.

Remember - it's not what you expect the enemy to do, it's what he is capable of doing.

Jim Yardley is a retired financial controller for manufacturing firms, a Vietnam veteran and an independent voter.  Jim blogs at http://jimyardley.wordpress.com/, or he can be contacted directly at james.v.yardley@gmail.com