Late Tuesday afternoon Susan Rice, former President Obama’s national security advisor, conceded that she had “unmasked” Trump associates. “Unmask” is the term used in the national security community to describe when a U.S. citizen’s communication is captured incidental to the surveillance of someone else. Intelligence reports don’t name U.S. citizens unless a decision is made to “unmask” the names for internal use only.

The “unmasking” is in itself not illegal but it does raise serious questions including why she needed to know the names.

A Wall Street Journal report is raising concerns. Quoting an unnamed Republican official, it says that two U.S. citizens have been disclosed in intelligence reports. This official claims Rice did NOT unmask Mr. Flynn but unmasked a second Trump associate. This would suggest that a second Obama official unmasked Flynn. How widespread was this effort to destroy the incoming Trump administration? Who is the second Obama official?

Now, remember, “unmasking” is step one. Leaking the name/names to the media is step two and it is very likely a felony. Susan Rice categorically denies she was the leaker. But the Obama administration circulated the name within the government far and wide, essentially “inviting” the leak.

Speaking of Obama, who has left the country to work on a book, what was his role? Susan Rice was one of his closest advisors. Certainly they would have talked regularly. It is plausible, perhaps even likely, that she informed Obama that she was collecting information on the Trump campaign. It’s also legitimate to ask whether Obama was directing her in some way. With each passing day Donald Trump’s widely mocked assertion that he was “wire tapped,” by which he meant that his people were monitored, is looking more credible.

Who Else?

The monitoring of Trump and his associates reportedly started before he got the GOP nomination. We also know that during the Obama years others the administration disliked, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were surveilled.

Did the Obama administration use the national security apparatus of the U.S. to spy on other U.S. political figures? What about Sen. Bernie Sanders, who was bedeviling Hillary Clinton for months? We know the “fix” was in at the DNC. How about other GOP contenders — Cruz, Rubio, etc.? When the monitoring of Trump began it was not settled that he would be the nominee.

Obama also was known to believe that if Trump were nominated he would be easily defeated on Election Day. So why monitor him but not others? Inquiring minds want to know!

But, But, But… He Doesn’t Know What He Is Doing?

Illegal immigration across the southwest border is down more than 60 percent so far under President Trump.

The ADP jobs report yesterday for March was a home run with over 267,000 new civilian jobs, way above expectations. Business confidence and investment confidence has soared during the early days of the Trump/Pence era.

Not bad for a “novice” outsider president.

The Patriotism Gap

A recently released Gallup poll finds that 67 percent of Democrats are “extremely” or “very proud” to be Americans, down 11 percentage points since just last year, and a new low since Gallup began measuring these attitudes in 2001.

Based on the decline among Democrats, three out of four U.S. adults now say they are proud to be American, which is also a new low. In the early 2000’s, for example, the share of Americans who said they were proud to be Americans was in the 90s.

Also, the 14 percent of Democrats who say they are either “only a little proud” (9 percent) or “not at all proud” (5 percent) to be American is more than double last year’s number of 6 percent.

Republicans, meanwhile, are just as patriotic as they’ve always been. “Republicans’ pride remains high at 92%,” Gallup reports, “close to the average 94% Gallup has measured for the group since 2001.”

Perhaps the most telling number in the poll is the 25-point gap in patriotic feelings between Republicans and Democrats, which, again, is the highest in Gallup’s records.

Americans are a patriotic people. Visiting foreigners sometimes marvel that the American flag is ubiquitous in front yards across the country — not just on the Fourth of July but all year round.

Unfortunately, patriotism among liberals has been waning for years, and, as the Gallup poll shows, has now dropped to a new low. In the last year, Barack Obama has left office and Donald Trump has become president by promising to restore America to its former glory. It’s sad that a candidate that pledges to Make America Great Again has prompted so many liberals to lose faith in their country.

It’s also sad that a president’s pledge to put America first on issues such as immigration, trade and foreign policy would be controversial. Trump’s election and presidency has brought to the surface the worst instincts of many on the Left — chief among them their ambivalence, and in some cases hatred, for the land of the free and the home of the brave.