NONE DARE CALL IT PARANOIA. Bloggers are flogging Able Danger now that the Pentagon is stonewalling. Many have arrived at the interesting conclusion that George W. Bush is covering up for Bill Clinton, but hardly know what to do with this synapse-freezing idea.

Commenters at Captain's Quarters seem particularly stunned, even wounded, e.g: "I am disappointed in the extreme by DOD's decision yesterday to silence the Able Danger team and astounded at the Bush Administration's continued attempts to cover for its lice infested predecssor."

Hard Starboard speculates that perhaps the Bush Administration

agreed to help cover up the [Clinton Administration's] criminal negligence in leaving the nation so nakedly vulnerable to the 9/11 attacks. And in exchange for what? Manipulation of the Democrat side of last year's presidential primaries to help ensure an opponent Bush could beat? Letting the Democrat party be run into the ground by the Sorosians and moveon.orgers, leaving the GOP with a majority almost by default? Or maybe nothing at all - just the ultimate extreme of Bush's "New Tone" paradigm.

This is a gorgeous example of the genre, from the Rube Goldberg election-fixing scheme resulting in an extremely narrow Bush victory (couldn't they afford a landslide?) to the final suggestion that Bush is committing this treason because he's just too darned nice to his enemies.

I am sympathetic to the PermaGovernment cast of this story, but I decided a long time ago that down that X-Files path lay madness, and decided to let certain sleeping dogs lie. But for the sort of commentator who generally believes that liberals run everything from faculty lounges and newspaper offices and that's why Clinton was never hanged, such recourse is probably difficult to avail.