Faced with a president with approval ratings in the Nixonian range, GOP favorable numbers plummeting, and public opinion on every single issue favoring Democrats, Democrats again last night stood strong and gave President Bush exactly the FISA legislation he demanded!
I'm so proud to be associated with such a strong party that sees capitulation over such a clearly bad piece of legislation as strength.
And once again, just like a record player that is stuck in a groove, Melissa Bean (8th Illinois - Blue Dog) and Daniel Lipinski (3rd Illinois) lead the fight to bow down in fear of the popular President and fear mongering Republicans, voting for a bill that gives AG Gonzales, the guy who has difficulty remembering much of anything, more power to spy on Americans.
If anybody asks why in hell you chose to legalize what the Cheney-Bush team has been doing illegally since 2001, you're going to tell us you did it for our own good. You amended the 29-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - originally passed to put some modest restrictions on agencies whose outrageous and frequently illegal behavior had been exposed by journalists and the Church Committee - to make us safe. You're going to tell us you've got our backs.
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Frankly, you epitomize weak. Your every pore exudes feebleness. You are surrender monkeys. And you've just casually tossed away a basic protection as if it were a banana peel.
Pressed, I suspect that over the next month some of you will defend this pitiful capitulation with the argument that it's only for six months, and that you'll have a chance to amend the amendment, to rewrite the law more properly. You'll pretend that you won't kiss the President's ass half a year from now when he comes back and says exactly what he said this time: Give me what I want or I'll blame you the next time terrorists kill Americans. Weak is bad enough. Must you be simpletons as well? How many times has he marketed this crap? How many times have you bought it? Do you also fall for those late-night $19.95 television deals for a double-set of knives that never need sharpening?
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If your behavior were mere self-destructiveness, it wouldn't matter quite so much. But you're taking all Americans down with you. The White House still refuses to even say what it is doing. As Greenwald points out:
Vast abuses and criminality in surveillance remain undisclosed, uninvestigated and unimpeded because Congressional Democrats have stood meekly by while the administration refuses to disclose what it has been doing in how it spies on us. ...
Congressional Democrats know virtually nothing about how the Bush administration has been eavesdropping on our conversations because the administration refused to tell them and they passively accepted this state of affairs.
I'm disgusted and embarrassed to call myself a Democrat today. You've voted to essentially give Bush and Gonzales more power while they have ignored Congressional oversight, thumbed their noses at requests for information about what they are doing and how they have already broken the law relating to FISA, and you are giving in to them for fear of looking weak.
Here's a clue: You look pathetically weak in this move and deserve the label that Republicans have given you.
We can't do it by leaving the party, or the country, or by burying our heads in the sand. But we can do it by doing what we do. Being activists. Leading. Changing the hearts and minds of the people. Then they will change the hearts and minds of the Reps. And, in the districts where the Democrats won easily, there's a thing called a primary.
I firmly agree with Meteor Blades: I've had it with the pathetic excuses. If Democrats elected to stand up to Bush will not, it's time to act and replace them. They no longer deserve our support if they can cave so easily and vote for such a bad piece a legislation that knowingly gives more cover to Bush's violation of the law.
