The Climategate emails, the Interior Department’s misrepresentation of the scientific analysis of the Gulf spill, the supposed Kagan touch-up of a bothersome medical opinion, the fraudulent Kos poll — there have been a number of news stories lately about fraudulent means being used to further noble liberal ends. What all these diverse incidents have in common is a general feeling that exalted progressive aims — stop global warming, gulf drilling, restrictions on abortion, and the Right — sometimes necessitate a “by any means necessary” approach. This impression is enhanced by the Obama administration’s similarly Jacobin approach to the law — reversing the order of Chrysler’s contractual creditors, declaring by edict what BP must set forth, trial balloons about enacting elements of amnesty and cap-and-trade by fiat rather than legislation when the votes are absent, Secretary Solis deciding that federal immigration law will not be enforced by her agency… I guess we are in an age when morality is defined by the realization of certain social goals rather than the means by which one obtains them, however reprehensible.