When Carter Page learned in April 2017 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had obtained a secret court order to listen in on his communications, the Washington Post asked him about it. Mr. Page, the paper reported, “compared surveillance of him to the eavesdropping that the FBI and Justice Department conducted against civil rights leader Martin Luther King.”

Everyone had a good laugh. “Never ever, ever, compare yourself in any way whatsoever to Martin Luther King,” sneered the Post’s Jonathan Capehart. “Ever.”

Certainly...