A Saner Head On FISA
I'm not sure I agree with Neil the "Werewolf" on this one, but it's nice that he's trying to console us. I do feel a bit better, but I'm not buying into this statement:
This bill is basically the same kind of garden-variety corruption one expects from Congress -- protecting wealthy interests at the expense of ordinary folk. That's why it's a bad piece of legislation. But Congress passes junk like that all the time (the farm bill, lots of defense appropriations, not bargaining hard with Big Pharma, etc) and it's not the end of the world. And that's why I'm writing this post -- I don't want people to lose perspective and think that this is too much more than just another garden-variety bit of corporate corruption. It's a lot closer to the tax breaks for ceiling fan importers that it is to torture.
It's a bit more troubling than all that Neil, a few more basic principles and American freedoms are at stake here, don't you think?
And the problem is broader than Neil paints with his singular focus on the imperative that we must replace George Bush and his entire criminal enterprise from the executive branch -- and of course than requires that anyone with an "R" after their name is no longer welcome at any White House Bar-B-Q's. (No, seriously. Forget about the post-partisan crap about retaining someone like Gates at DoD or any similar "enlightened" nonsense. They ALL have to go.)
Neil begins with the simple premis that , "This is a legislative precedent that emerged because Steny Hoyer decided that it would be good business to sell the telcos the immunity they wanted in exchange for campaign contributions." But that doesn't reveal the whole picture. Hoyer would never have been placed in such an untenable position, knowing he would be labeled as a bought and paid for hack by even well-meaning analysts like Neil if the Democrats in the House weren't hamstrung by the turncoat Blue-Dogs who vote with the GOP on damn near everything that matters, and thus as loyal to Bush as John McCain.
Now I don't know if these DINO's will have an epiphany when Barack Obama takes the oath of office, or will have some enlightenment shoved down their throats. But I do know that haveing the equivalent of 40 or so Joe Liebermans filling space in the Democratic Caucus and marching in lock-step with the remnants of Tom DeLay's outfit is THE principle reason Congress as an institution is despised more than anything, ever.
So thanks Neil, I do feel a bit better, but I'm looking for more than merely an inauguration ushering a new era. I'm looking for a purge.
Sadly, I'll probably be disappointed on both counts. But in the true spirit of a Cleveland sports fan and apostle of St. Wiley E. Coyote and the Church of Never Say Die, that certainly doesn't mean I'll accept the notion that the Perfect is the enemy of the Good.
...the turncoat Blue-Dogs who vote with the GOP on damn near everything that matters, and thus as loyal to Bush as John McCain.
Like I always say, if you think those guys are bad, you should see their constituents.
Isn't it just as likely that Hoyer (and Pelosi and Reid at least and probably many more) voted for this because they know they, too, would be implicated, and possibly named as defendants, in any forthcoming telco lawsuits?
There's one institution that's more despised than Congress and that's the press. Tellingly, they won't inform you about that.
Anyway, I don't know enough about Obama to venture a guess at this point as to whether he had to go with the program because so much of the Dem leadership had their fingers dirty on FISA or whether, as Digby thinks, he wanted to put another nail in the Dems-weak-on-security coffin as he campaigns against McCain. That is McCain's one and only hope now that the rest of the right-wing Wurlitzer's tune appears to be falling on deaf ears.
Anyway it's a monstrous act of political cowardice and a naked betrayal of their oaths to the Constitution (not to mention, a giant "fuck you" to the liberals who brung 'em).