Not a week goes by that some part of the Left does not hurt America. But in the past two weeks, three examples stood out for the degree of such harm.

 The first example involved the ACLU, which has threatened Southwest Airlines with a lawsuit. Southwest ordered a passenger off a flight after she refused to cover her T-shirt on which was printed an expletive -- "Fu--ers" -- referring to President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

 The ACLU position is not surprising. That organization had once defended a high school student whose school had prohibited him from wearing to class a T-shirt that read "Big Pecker."

 I have previously noted in this column the widespread approval of foul language on the Left, such as the expletive-filled entertainment at a John Kerry fundraiser organized by MoveOn.org. Nor is it surprising that a high percentage of my e-mail from people on the Left contains obscenities. To most Americans, the huge increase in public cursing is a sign of a deteriorating civilization; to the Left it is a sign of a freer, less hypocritical one.

 The second example was a federal judge appointed by former President Bill Clinton ordering the Defense Department to release all remaining photos of prisoner abuse by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison. Though it is certain that the only effect of the photos will be to further endanger Americans at home and abroad and increase the danger to American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and though there is absolutely no need for the public to see these photos, the judge ordered their release.

 Thanks to this decision by one judge, we are in for another orgy of anti-Americanism in the foreign and domestic news media and another propaganda victory for those who murder people trying to vote, place bombs in tourist hotels and slaughter innocent human beings like sheep.

 To understand the destructive nature of this decision, imagine what would have happened during World War II if photos of similar (or more serious) abuse of alleged Nazis were available. Would any judge in America have ordered that they be published? Would such a lawsuit have ever been brought?

 Many on the Left regard the term "national security" as essentially a right-wing cover for conservatism, which they equate with a form of fascism. That explains the Left's contempt for the Patriot Act, and it helps explain the decision of U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein. That Americans will be killed as a result of a judge's decision to release photos is of no consequence to the Left. Indeed, for the ACLU, release of the photos is a victory precisely because it does weaken American ability to fight Islamic terrorists.

 A third example is the Left's libel of Bill Bennett. I covered this issue in detail in my last column. Suffice it to say here that a prominent liberal writer, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, sees the larger issue raised by the nearly universal left-wing smear of Bennett as a racist who advocates the abortion of all black babies. In a courageous column, Cohen wrote that "The GOP was the party of Joe McCarthy. . . . Now, though, it is the Democrats who . . . stifle debate and smother thought."

 From the pointless judicial weakening of American security, to the fight to force airlines to allow passengers to display obscenities, to the ongoing libel of Bill Bennett -- a libel as far from truth as is the infamous "blood libel" that claims that Jews slaughter Gentile children to use their blood for baking matzo -- this was just another week of harm to a great civilization by barbarians inside the gates.