Say this for Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign, it certainly is good for a chuckle now and then. The latest was her energy policy, released yesterday, proposing “funding for an ARPA-E, a new research agency modeled on the successful Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.” The part that made us chuckle was Mrs. Clinton’s description of DARPA as “successful.” Why, it was not long ago — July of 2003, to be precise — that Mrs. Clinton was accusing DARPA and one of its officials at the time, Iran-Contra figure Admiral John Poindexter, of planning what she called a “market in death and destruction,” that was “not in keeping with our values.” The idea, advanced by DARPA, was of a market that would allow bettors to wager on the likelihood of terrorist attacks or other adverse events in particular times and places.

Earlier in 2003, Mrs. Clinton and her Senate colleagues voted to scuttle a DARPA anti-terrorism database project known as “Total Information Awareness.” In fact, Senator Clinton was a co-sponsor of the amendment by Senator Wyden, passed on January 23, 2003, to halt funding for DARPA’s Total Information Awareness program. A press release from Mr. Wyden touted Mrs. Clinton’s assistance in averting what Mr. Wyden warned would have been “the most far-reaching government surveillance plan in history,” one with the potential to allow the government “to snoop on law-abiding Americans.” Now Mrs. Clinton is out on the campaign trail touting DARPA as a success. We don’t doubt that it is — the American military is a technological marvel. But the real wonders here aren’t military technology but the contortions Mrs. Clinton is willing to go through to get herself elected president.