unfortunate but true

The beauty of American system of politics and governance used to be that the system worked, more or less, without the need for mortal beings to be heroes.

What the GWB and his team of fearmongers and warmongers have done is to turn this upside down.

Since we cannot and should not expect to many politicians to be heroic, we are all screwed.

Then why the hell didn't they give Bush the entirely reasonable bill which he had threatened nevertheless to veto, and leave HIM holding the bag if an attack occurred after he had vetoed it?

and yet, there are always some politicians who manage to see the truth and do the right thing. Russ Feingold comes to mind, as well as Howard Dean (remember how he was ridiculed when he said that it was good we caught Saddam but America wasn't any safer for it?)

Surely we can dig up a few more not-so-risk-averse politicians? Somewhere?

(Of course, I would have put Jim Webb in that camp--shows you what I know)

The real awful things about this (accurate) analysis is that it relies upon the (accurate) assessment that congress critters will do anything to keep their jobs. Anything.

Most of the rest of us draw some kind of line about things that we won't do, that is, we will quit, or risk being fired. Not so with this group, and it is frightening.

I might lose the election, as a rationale, justifies everything, even when it also true that the decision made is bad for the country. Individual job security trumps national concerns (including security).

And, due to the time lag and ambiguity that plays out due to these awful decision, we as a nation both condone and encourage this type of calculus. It's really a crap way to run things.

How is it that Bush can do nothing and have the largest terrorist attack happen on his watch and he is a hero and the Democrats can't even not pass a bill for fear of taking blame for a non-existant terrorist act.

The Democrats in congress always loose this becasue they are capitulating to bullies. How about investigating Abu Ghraib? How about investigating Tillman. How about investigating the billions of dollars missing form the CPA. How about taking it to Bush instead of rolling over on everything.

If the Democrats are afraid of being called names by Bush then they don't deserve to be in power.

Except that the chances of finding WMDs was zero and there was no serious evidence beforehand to indicate otherwise. Just as now there is little chance of a serious terrorist attack and there is zero evidence that the Bush team could prevent one being planned right this moment.

If terrorism were a serious issue and if the Republicans had a better than zero chance of doing something about it, there might be a point. But that doesn't reflect the real world.

Only a great orator will find a way to re-frame this.

13 of the 16 Democrats who voted for it in the Senate are NOT up for reelection in 2008. Many aren't up for reelection in 2011 either, but in 2013.

Those 3 who did vote for the bill are only marginally Democratic (Mary Landrieu, Mark Pryor and Tom Carper) anyway. A no-vote would probably have come back to haunt them in their districts, with the exception of Tom Carper, whom I think is going to be Hillary's choice for #2 on her ticket.

Mark Pryor is the senator who directly accused Alberto Gonzales of lying to his face, and now he broadens Gonzales' authority to spy on Americans?

Last Saturday in the House, Jerry Nadler retreated from his correct accusation that Bush committed illegal acts after Darrell Issa bullied him. Tin foil is getting very hard to resist.

and of course it was pure coincidence that there was a terrorist alert in Washington just prior to the vote...

In many ways, this was an even more cowardly showing than the AUMF vote. Simply inexcusable. Even if there were to be a terrorist attack within the next 30 days, there is about zero chance that this wiretapping horseshit would have stopped it. They have been doing it illegally anyway since 9/11. There was no hurry.

job security > national security

Maeven:
What would Carper bring to the ticket? He brings nothing to the ticket except being Clinton's DLC buddy.

This analysis is clever, but makes a deep mistake.

The logic is:
-For the Iraq war, if you didn't support it and it turned out there were WMDs, you were going to be in trouble.
-For FISA, if you don't support the reform and there's an attack, then you're in trouble.

But they have also tried to characterize other bills in this way, with no success. If you don't support the Patriot Act 2, and there's an attack, you're to blame; if you don't support Rumsfeld and Gonzales and there's a terrorist attack, you're to blame; if you don't support the President's efforts to increase his powers in the name of security, and there's an attack, you're to blame.

The incentive-logic clearly did not hold in these latter cases (despite what many Democrats feared). "National security hawks" may have appeared to have the upper hand, but they didn't, and Democrats made gains in opposing these things. The point is, a specific case of "if you don't do X and the terrorists attack, you are to blame" only works as an incentive if people are likely to believe the cause-and-effect. And there is quite a lot of room for defining when that cause-and-effect holds.

This may seem obvious, but I think it goes against Kevin Drum's deterministic claim that "if you do X and the terrorists attack" then you are "firmly and completely screwed". That is far too strong a formulation, as is the idea that you "risk being proved wrong in a way that's so crystal clear." It's not at all clear, and there are many cases where the right has attempted to define it clearly, only to have the left (recently, partially) redefine things in a more reasonable manner, without apparent political damage.

It is not the case that "there's simply no chance of talking your way out of it." It has been done many times before, even since 9/11, and it can be done again. Americans didn't blame Bush for 9/11, and who gets the blame for the next attack is very much up in the air.

Shorter version:

"Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."

Kevin,

The right solution here was to pass a bill through the house with all the nastiness stripped out, and get it to the Senate. By being pro-active they can loudly say we passed a bill and the president/Republican Senate refused to sign it. If something goes down while the president is being made to be publicly dickering it's on him.

By not having a stripped bill ready to go they let themselves be played into the corner. It's not the first time this has happened. You have to control the agenda to not be made to look like asses.

It's very simple.

pat, i think, is on the money: like digby (and pat), i believe there has been off-the-record chatter about another terrorist attack coming this summer and some democrats simply wimped out in the face of it for the logic that kevin identified.

pathetic.

i had a couple of DNC fundraisers come knock at my door a couple of days ago: not a chance, i told them, not after the FISA cave-in. From their facial expression, i suspect i wasn't the only one.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney say, "Boo!" Congress responds, "Eek!"

Simply pathetic. With this kind of congressional rationalization, we're doomed.

Clint: "If the Democrats are afraid of being called names by Bush then they don't deserve to be in power."

Okay. Then what do you suggest is our alternative -- that we just put Alaska's congressional delegation in charge, and call it a day?

Let me be even more specific, and ask: When was the last time you called your congressional representatives? And that question's not directed to you personally, Clint, but to everyone reading and participating in this thread. Because that's what really needs to take place here -- Congress needs to hear from ALL of us. As someone who once worked on Capitol Hill, I can assure that citizen input on a grand scale does NOT go unnoticed by these people.

But please temper your outrage with something positive that they can grasp as political support. As we chide them for their hesitation, we also need to re-assure otherwise-fearful Democrats that we will stand by them, and will have their backs in the inevitable constitutional confrontation with the Bush Administration.

Because that confrontation IS coming, whether they like it or not.

BruceMoomaw makes an excellent point. The Democrats could and should have handed Bush a reasonable bill; the fact that he threatened to veto a reasonable version should have been all the more incentive. LET HIM VETO IT, if he dares. If a terrorist attack were to happen, he would have no one to blame but himself.

Of course Bush would try to blame Democrats for not giving him enough power, but it would be a much harder sell. Bush, not the Democrats, would be responsible for killing the bill. Bush would have rejected it largely to avoid oversight, which has less to do with the quality of the tools used to fight terrorism as it does with simple accountability to make sure this administration isn't violating the law and constitution.

Or to put it more simply, a Bush veto would make his position more complicated than a 10 word or less soundbyte, in which case he loses the 'rhetorical' advantage.

Why are the Democrats so incompetent? First, never give Bush a piece of legislation you don't want him to have. Second, give your bills patriotic names that would make it harder for Bush to veto, e.g. would Bush really risk vetoing something called the defense of the homeland surveillance bill? Third, how hard would it be to put something in your bill that you could use against the president were he to veto the bill, such as added funds for the Walter Reed VA hospital, or more Kevlar vests for our troops, etc. Four, just because the president pulls a last minute switcheroo on congress doesn't mean they have to accept either his terms or the deadlines.

Democrats could delay the congressional recess, make a stink about the president being a bad faith negotiator and trivializing national security for political gain, AND drop the insinuation that the president wanted to leave the nation without the necessary tools to stop a terrorist attack that Republicans have been predicting.

Dems could also criticize the president for going on vacation when he is himself responsible for leaving unfinished work. Call Bush "MIA...again".

Threaten to censure the president if he doesn't return to Washington to sign the bill. Democrats win whether he returns or not. If Bush doesn't return, you accuse him of refusing to take national security seriously - again. Dems probably wouldn't have the votes necessary for a censure, but you could use Republican no votes against them in the next election (accusing THEM of not taking national security seriously, either).

If Bush did return to Washington, it would look like he did so because the Dems ordered him to return. It would be a small coup for the Democrats if they actually appeared capable of reigning in Bush from time to time.

Oh well.

1. Democrats block the Protect America Act

2. Terrorist act occurs

3. Later commission investigation shows ---

4. NSA (or whomever) was engaged in doing warrantless monitoring of telcons of bad guy(s) for the days (3?) original FISA allows

5. NSA applied to FISA court to continue but

6. FISA court, which always has approved warrants in the past, denied this particular one on grounds that bad guy(s) had never done or said anything suggesting even a de minimus chance or possibility that he was or might become a terrorist.

Why would anyone think NSA would have kept listening under these -- the only possible -- circumstances?

How would the Protect America Act have forestalled the attack?

Isn't that the only way Kevin's example can happen? About as likely as the ticking bomb scenario!

Have at me. Corrections welcome.

Ellen, if I understand your example correctly, you're saying the only way Democrats could reasonably be accused of hindering the ability to prevent a terrorist attack would be under the unlikely circumstances that the FISA court specifically denied surveillance on a group that later made an attack.

If that's what you're saying, I agree with your logic. Also, it would take some time for such a revelation to come out.

The problem is, however, that the political blame game rarely cares about the facts. People cite facts (if any) that support their argument and simply ignore or fabricate the rest.

Republicans would scream about how it is no coincidence that shortly after the Democrats took away an important tool used to fight terrorism that we were attacked - QED for your average Joe.

This is not to excuse the Democrats, because the Democrats - if they were spineless incompetents - could point to the fact that Bush and the GOP failed to enact the 911 commission recommendations or otherwise take national security seriously during their monopoly control of the government.

It's also a fair assumption that - especially after Katrina - Bush would take most of the blame should there be a second terrorist attack on his watch. The GOP has controlled the government almost the entire time he's been in office. Meanwhile Democrats, not the Republicans, were the ones to pass the 911 commission's recommendations, so they have a decent leg to stand on.

Also, as per your example, a terrorist attack would almost certainly exploit a more conspicuous security weakness than surveillance, e.g. poor work by airport TSA agents; easy access to fire arms in this country; lack of security around a port, power plant, etc.

The Democrats just look like they blinked yet again.

The Repubicans (talkin' to you, Clarence Thomas) are always going to blame the Democrats for everything anyway, so what's the risk, exactly. The only thing your average NASCAR drone respects is displays of cojones, and when's that going to happen, exactly?

I'm never getting over this. The Democrat's have proven to me that Ralph Nader was right, in this. There is absolutely no difference between Democrat's and Republicans on foreign policy issues.

I will not continue to vote for the Democratic party now. I will not continue to vote for other people's issues, when I find them morally repulsive. I'm all for abortion and gay rights, but this isn't the time to prioritize those issues ABOVE THE CONSTITUTION. Those issues are the only differences between the parties, and I'm not playing this stupid little game anymore. I'll vote for a Republicans before I'll ever vote for another democrat.

I'm gonna cross-post a comment I left on Crooked Timber:

Some of us first learned of the impending assault upon Iraq in July 2002. There were just hints then, and the famous comment that you don’t roll out a new product in August. At the time it seemed like a purely political push to boost the Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections, and to that extent it was certainly successful.

Thus a fourth-generation Democrat like me could oppose it reflexively without even considering questions like, should we invade a country which hasn’t attacked us, which doesn’t threaten us, whose invasion would plunk us in a quagmire, which aren’t that hard to answer by themselves.

[Then I added, as a kicker]

Is there any future for American intervention at this point, given our appetite for torture, indefinite detention, and "pinpoint assaults" (read: indiscriminate slaughter) from airborne weapon platforms? What could be more terrifying than finding armored troops on your doorstep announcing “We’re from the United States and we’re here to help you?�

One must also consider the impact of the theory of cognitive consistency where repetitive manipulation of language was a strategy both by the administration and their "right arm" in the form of Fox News and other Right Wing news outlets.
Many contributing factors of promoting myths and inaccuracies and targeting of emotions--
a terrible, purposeful trajectory that has resulted in our current despicable situation.
And the passage of this bill.

From now on, I suggest we always put the "war on terror" in quotes.
That phrase is simply part of the Bush Doctrine. Or more accurately, it is the Bush's indoctrination. A three headed centaur of fear, coercion and manipulation of thinking.
It makes people feel dependent.

The American public and politicians have fallen prey to manipulation. It was a corrupt strategy of the administration and it included cognitive manipulation--consistently applied.
It raises very fundamental questions and implications. How often have you heard terms such as "weak on terror?" It is manipulation of language and emotions.
Orwellian cognitive manipulation.

Then why the hell didn't they give Bush the entirely reasonable bill which he had threatened nevertheless to veto, and leave HIM holding the bag if an attack occurred after he had vetoed it?

THAT should have been the show-stopper right there! Thank you, Bruce Moomaw, for stating what OUGHT to have been obvious all along.

The mainstream media now seems determined to cast this "capitulation" in a certain potentially "forgiveable" light, as apparently does Kevin by thus buying into a largely FABRICATED rationale as the "ultimate truth" behind these betrayals..

But the FACTS indicate otherwise. For one thing, MOST of the Democrats REJECTED the bill actually submitted -- the unmodified one that the ADMINISTRATION managed to ramrod through in a last-minute "bait and switch". (Of course, those "senior Democtrats" involved in the negotiations could have, and SHOULD have, issued a Cheney-style pejorative to Admiral McConnell in response to the regime's brazen renegation.) And as one commenter here pointed out previously, most of the Senate's Democrats who actually supported this latest "Enabling Act" were NOT up for re-election any time soon! American "memory" being what it is, they would not have been at all "at risk" politically had they chosen instead to oppose that totalitarian give-away, as the vast MAJORITY of their peers did.

Sorry, Kevin. The media may be floating this as the "Conventional Wisdom's" preferred excuse, but I'm not buying it in the least! Those who sold out their constituents and the Constitution to this audacious NeoConNazi Reich by such duplicitous conduct, including ALL but a whopping TWO Congressional "Republicans", simply SOLD OUT!

(End of empirically ascertainable story. The rest is all Beltway Bullshit!)

Good morning Poilu--nice to see you are at it too!! I like your relentless style.
Thanks for your kind words about me in past postings and I return it in kind.

Poilu, if they didn't want the bill to pass they would have never scheduled a vote. You've got to be an idiot if you really think pointing to such obvious political theater as a bunch of Democrats voting against something only because they already knew it would pass as evidence that the Democratic party didn't really want this. They control the schedule, they control what gets voted on.

How many times can you people cover for these people before you realize you've alienated most of your allies? How many people gave up on the democrats after the defense bill? How many will refuse to vote for them now? You really think constantly engaging in "with us or against us" language is really going to shore up supporters? All you're doing is making yourselves look as corrupt and unethical as the Democratic party is. You aren't reassuring jack shit. In fact, you're just pissing us off more with this transparent bullshit.

Only problem with this logic is that even if the Dems would give Bush EVERYTHING he ever asks for, if an attack occurred, they STILL would get the blame.
Thus, they don't have anything to lose in standing up to the administration.
If they by now haven't figured that out, they can't be helped anymore and WE'RE the ones who are screwed.

The American public and politicians have fallen prey to manipulation. It was a corrupt strategy of the administration and it included cognitive manipulation--consistently applied.

Good morning, CWA! Well said above. The so-called "war on terror" has always struck me more as a deliberate "War on Freedom" and "War on Truth", as two of Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed's commendable tracts were entitled.

The Bush-Cheney Regime has long been brazenly applying Hitler's "Big Lie" formula, as elaborated in Mein Kampf, coupled with Goebel's maxim: "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth."

But mind you, they're not at ALL like the utterly perverse leadership of the Third Reich! That could NEVER happen here!! ;-)

Incidentally, I managed to locate the full Hornberger article (covering the Enabling Act) you had excerpted previously. Absolutely superb! The complete version of Umberto Eco's masterful essay, Ur-Fascism, is also remarkably illuminating these days. (The PDF version appears to be temporarily unavailable )

The problem is in agreeing to pass the FISA bill in the first place. Once you agree that warrentless spying of foreigners is fine and dandy, there's no ethical or logical reason why you can't tap the foreigners when they're talking to Americans.

I think that the Democrats realized that was an argument that they just couldn't win, especially in a post terrorist attack scared ass, chicken feed, selfish greedy America.

Rationalizatiton of gutlessness - gag me with a spoon. Democrats don't deserve to govern if they can't figure out how to counter these lies...

Look, shrub already has all the "tools" needed to fight terrorism. If he can't do it without even more power-that's his fault. It shouldn't be to hard to make that argument. If a terrorist strikes it's shrubs fault-plain and simple.

BTW if there is a terrorist strike the turds will blame the dems no matter what anyway.

But if you opposed the war and then, after the invasion went ahead over your objections, the Army discovered a serious nuclear arms program or an advanced bioweapons lab — both considered distinct possibilities at the time — you'd be out of office at the next midterm. For risk-averse politicians, the choice was obvious.

This is exactly why those senators who voted against the Iraq War in Oct. 2002 (especially the ones from red or purple states) deserve so much praise and gratitude: They took an incredible career risk to do what they thought was right. The folks who voted for the war, on the other hand, risked absolutely nothing.

soullite: You too appear to be drawing merely arbitrary inferences that CANNOT be demonstrated as fact and do not convincingly serve to "indict" the TOTALITY of the Congressional Democrats in any way. And while I'm more than open to allegations of potential conspiracy when the evidence alludes to that possibility, I don't see ANY compelling evidence here of even the requisite collusion.

Moreover, in suggesting that I'm somehow "covering" for the Democrats, you're either SORELY mistaken or deliberately being disingenuous. That is a deludely partisan game I don't play! To the contrary, I've clearly attributed blame where blame is due, but extrapolated no further! On the other hand, your own excessively "broad brush" attack against the Democratic Party as a WHOLE -- omitting any well-warranted criticism of the Nazi-like, Republican LOCK-STEP support of this abysmal measure -- suggests a different tactic.

I haven't remotely APPROACHED making most of the assertions you lamely "attribute" to me. So If it's "debate" you're after, kindly quote me correctly. I'm more than willing to hear you out on demonstrable facts, but rants leave me cold.

You're portraying this asymmetry entirely in terms of spin or ass-covering. It's a genuine asymmetry. The results of being wrong on a national security threat are indeed potentially catastrophic to the country, not just to political careers. I think it's a natural tendency to err on the side of being more aggressive rather than less given this reality. It isn't just ass-covering.

Of course Bush / Cheney have shown once again that the results of being wrong in the other direction can also be catastrophic. But in some ways that's harder to see. The American killed are soldiers, not civilians, posted far away, not in our largest city. The civilians killed aren't American, and while that doesn't mean their deaths are without meaning, American politicans aren't elected to represent them. Their first responsibility is to the people they represent. And while the death and destructing we're wreaking will eventually come back to hurt us, again that's much harder to see.

The point is I think this is a genuine problem in national security decision-making, not just weakness on the part of the Dems.

Most of the rest of us draw some kind of line about things that we won't do, that is, we will quit, or risk being fired. Not so with this group, and it is frightening.

I might lose the election, as a rationale, justifies everything, even when it also true that the decision made is bad for the country. Individual job security trumps national concerns (including security).

That's it, isn't it? I'm trying to imagine a job, a mark of status, a chunk of power and influence I wanted to keep so badly that I'd do this. I can't--and I'm a human with more than average flaws and my own heaping share of selfishness.

Or, put another way, how big does your ego have to be that you think the country is better off with you still in Congress than with the results of this horrendous law?

Only problem with this logic is that even if the Dems would give Bush EVERYTHING he ever asks for, if an attack occurred, they STILL would get the blame.
Thus, they don't have anything to lose in standing up to the administration.
If they by now haven't figured that out, they can't be helped anymore and WE'RE the ones who are screwed.

I still don't understand how leading Dems haven't learned this lesson after seeing it in practice over a thousand times. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you cave, no matter how gung-ho you let yourself become, you're going to be painted as an anit-war, Islamofacist socialist dirty ****ing hippy.

Screw what they're going to paint you ass, when you're already in a damned if you do, damned if you don't sitch with them. Go for broke and grab those who like spine. No one likes jellyfishes.

Of course Bush / Cheney have shown once again that the results of being wrong in the other direction can also be catastrophic. But in some ways that's harder to see.

I have to disagree with you, larry. The poisonous effects of this bill on all citizens' privacy and rights are clear as day to anyone who actually read the final version instead of running around like scared chickens. What Bushco is likely to do with this power is also quite easy to foresse, given the ample track record of this administration. And for a Congress currently investigating Gonzales' lawlessness, lies and contempt for the Constitution to remove program oversight from the courts and hand it back to the AG--well, to miss the certain consequences of that one requires actual blindness.

I might add that the Bush administration has pulled this "you've got to pass this bill before you go on vacation for the security of the country!" nonsense before. It's not even a fresh move.

No, it wasn't hard to see what would happen if they passed this bill, and it wasn't hard to see how much more likely is that result than some nebulous terror attack. It just took courage and firmness and a real interest in protecting your constituents.

true. whimps.

So much for "duty, honor, country" huh!

....I'll vote for a Republicans before I'll ever vote for another democrat.
Posted by: soullite on August 10, 2007 at 5:39 AM | PERMALINK

You're self destructive, and you're dragging us down with you. Stop it.

Rationalizatiton of gutlessness - gag me with a spoon. Democrats don't deserve to govern if they can't figure out how to counter these lies...
Posted by: The Conservative Deflator on August 10, 2007 at 7:08 AM | PERMALINK

So what we let the GOP f***ers who brought this disaster a pass while we get grumpy and tell everyone who'll listen how much the world sucks.

That's a real survival strategy you got there. Thank you for all your effort. Quitter.

I think it's important to emphasize that the Democrats who "caved in" on the FISA issue were a distinct minority. MOST Democrats did actually vote against the bill. Yes, those who voted for it showed a deplorable lack of backbone. But what about the near universal suport of Republicans, who may express dissatisfaction with Bush's policies but who continue to walk in lock step with him when it comes to voting? That's still where the biggest part of the problem with Congress lies.

i had a couple of DNC fundraisers come knock at my door a couple of days ago: not a chance, i told them, not after the FISA cave-in. From their facial expression, i suspect i wasn't the only one.

Lucky you; I only get them on the phone. And I already told them they wouldn't get one mroe dime from me until they did something about Gonzales.

The Democrats -- at least the Congresscritters -- are going to have problems with their base in '08.

I might add that the Bush administration has pulled this "you've got to pass this bill before you go on vacation for the security of the country!" nonsense before. It's not even a fresh move.

And if it was so darn urgen, why did Bush and the Republican Congress not make changes to the law in the past six years? (Answer: Because a court hadn't just declared Bush's surveillance program illegal.)

My senator Claire McCaskill voted for the FISA bill. Her comment was a real "profile in courage." Apparently American liberties are not nearly as important to Claire as her recess. She must be banking on a lot of Missourians forgetting about her vote.

Shortstop, don't get me wrong, there are lots of reasons not to trust any admin, let alone this one, with the kind of unsupervised authority granted in this bill. And it does seem like they timed the situation to enable maximum bullying power. They enjoy that obviously and think that that's what leadership is. It isn't. They negotiated in bad faith with the Congressional leadership and those guys got caught short. But the point is, they insisted on a sunset provision in the bill so it will be revisited, and by their actions and by his acquiesence, McConnell just flushed his credibility down the toilet as have many in this admin before him. I am reasonably confident that the hearings on this this fall will be very intense. And I don't think the Gonzalez story is over yet either.

Anybody remember what happened to the two Seanators who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which gave LBJ the ticket to widen the Vietnam War (after the "unprovoked" and "dastardly" attack on our ships USS Maddox & the USS Turner Joy?

larry birnbaum: It's a genuine asymmetry. The results of being wrong on a national security threat are indeed potentially catastrophic to the country, not just to political careers. I think it's a natural tendency to err on the side of being more aggressive rather than less given this reality. It isn't just ass-covering.

Of course Bush / Cheney have shown once again that the results of being wrong in the other direction can also be catastrophic. But in some ways that's harder to see. . . . while the death and destructing we're wreaking will eventually come back to hurt us, again that's much harder to see.

The point is I think this is a genuine problem in national security decision-making, not just weakness on the part of the Dems.

You make a very good point here. I think the administration is relying on this assymetry to save themselves from the mess in Iraq. They've solved the problem by coercing us Democrats into a game of chicken-by-proxy, with the troops as the hapless victims. BushCo is going to keep driving our defense forces straight toward a cliff, relying on the Democrats to lose their nerve and force troop withdrawal before they go over. When they do, BushCo will forever claim that the Democrats acted too soon. Victory was just a little farther down the road toward that cliff.

If the Democrats choose the immoral option of letting the armed forces be destroyed, it will hurt the Republican party, but it sure won't do much for the Democratic party either. In any case, Bush and Cheney will be buffered by billions of dollars from any damn disaster that results from their evil greed.

Since we just saw the Democrats let the Constitution go over the cliff, with promises of rescuing it in six months, I'm pretty worried about our future.

IOKIYAR-

Remember - "OK, you've covered your ass"

shortstop:"Of course Bush / Cheney have shown once again that the results of being wrong in the other direction can also be catastrophic. But in some ways that's harder to see."

I have to disagree with you, larry. The poisonous effects of this bill on all citizens' privacy and rights are clear as day to anyone who actually read the final version instead of running around like scared chickens.

Of course it's easy for people actually read bills and who follow politics closely to see the effects of this bill. But the reality is:

Fully 60.7 percent of eligible voters cast ballots by November 2, 2004—the highest turnout rate since 1968, when 61.9 percent voted.
http://www.carnegie.org/reporter/10/lessons/index.html

And what percentage of those people who even bothered to vote were well-informed? I'm quite sure that at least half weren't paying attention at all.

Most Americans aren't worried about this bill because they just aren't paying attention. They don't see anything except what the media delivers in an entertaining fashion.

But the point is, they insisted on a sunset provision in the bill so it will be revisited...I am reasonably confident that the hearings on this this fall will be very intense.

No, I don't think that is the point--and in any case, it isn't the original point you were making above, which is that the Dems who voted for this bill were visualizing the potential catastrophe of being wrong on a national security threat while lacking the ability to foresee the catastrophe that this law would certainly be. My post was an attempt to explain why the disastrous consequences of this bill were not only clear to any serious observer, but a virtual certainty rather than a nebulous possibility, as a terrorist attack certainly is.

To address your new point, no, the sunset provision is not a fix-all, and the damage is far longer-term than six months. Not only does the administration now have carte blanche to abuse this power for the next six months; the bill also includes a provision for extending for one year any surveillance begun before the six-month period ends. That will take us through the end of the administration. Again, this information was available to every member of congress who voted for this bill.

And I don't think the Gonzalez story is over yet either.

Let's hope not. However, my point was not to imply that it is, but instead to illustrate yet again why, given everything we know about Gonzales, the threats associated with passing this bill were far more tangible and predictable than those of "getting it wrong on a national security threat."

The asymmetry you describe doesn't lie in potential danger to the republic. It's grounded in representatives' ability to recognize and fairly measure actual threats.

Of course it's easy for people actually read bills and who follow politics closely to see the effects of this bill. But the reality is:

Fully 60.7 percent of eligible voters cast ballots by November 2, 2004—the highest turnout rate since 1968, when 61.9 percent voted.

Since I was speaking above about the members of Congress, not the general electorate, in response to Larry's assertion about actual harm to the country (as opposed to solely political damage), I would argue that it's not too much to expect that persons in Congress "actually read the bills" and rationally consider their likely effects on the country and Constitutional government.

Actually, the answer to this isn't in the issues or the legislation at all: it's in the financial and media structure of our politics.

Tip O'Neill was right: all politics is (or ought to be) LOCAL. Somebody pointed out rightly upthread that it is very hard to find representatives or even Senators who have issues on which they are clearly ready to lose. (McCain, frankly, being an honorable exception in two ways -- Iraq and immigration. Three, if you count campaign finance.)

But when you think of how surveillance plays POLITICALLY, you realize you're actually complaining about how an issue can be nationalized over local objections.

Someone like Heath Shuler might have been willing to go to his employers directly to say, look this was a bad bill. But the way we do modern politics, he wouldn't have been a rep talking to his constituents, he would have been a cork on the tidal wave of NATIONAL media.

So, there's a solution: only folks who can vote for a Representative OR a Senator, can make campaign contributions. If you don't live in the district, if you don't live in the state, you can't contribute. (And what the hell, limit contributions to US citizens, too.)

Throw in the Connecticut Principle I coined a few years back, that no state which gains population should lose representation, and in a decade or two you'd have Congressional districts that look more like media markets and actual COMMUNITIES, with ordinary organic boundaries.

AND you'd have Representatives and Senators who would be focused on their own districts and states when votes like this come up, NOT on how they might be swept away by national imagery manipulated by issues falsely framed.

For a different take, see the post by Matt Stoller today on Huffingtonpost, "Waking up to a working Republican majority."

It is going to be such a relief in 2008 when the Bush administration, and any Republican candidate who tries to replace him, is finally swept out of office. Their use of CIA tactics against the American public (which in the past was used to disrupt countries run by dictators we didn’t like) of constantly using fear, lies, and manipulation to keep everyone off balance, while they gut the country, will be gone.

Finally, we will have a government that believes in the Constitution and supports the idea that government is meant to provide for the common good. The sense of relief, similar to escaping an abusive relationship, will be enormous. The psychopaths who feel no remorse for the billions of wasted dollars and—more important—the loss of thousands of lives will be instantly gone after Inauguration Day in January of 2009.

This country has been traumatized and damaged by sick people who are supposed to be trusted to govern and care for this country. It will take decades to recover from this betrayal.

agree with Kevin and it comes down to the tired but true observation that the American electorate is on the whole irrational and unsophisticated. Congresscritters could not act the way they do without the voters' complicity. I felt the same desire as anyone to punish those responsible for 9/11 and Bush rode the wave of that desire from millions and millions of Americans to engineer a war of choice. I never bought into any rationales given for Irag from the word go but the electorate as a whole was and is still not rational enough to avoid these kinds of mistakes. Hillary will get away with her lack of leadership via AUMF unless people start admitting they were wrong about Iraq. It really is about the irrational human psyche. Until a person can admit they are wrong, no change will occur and politicians will still get away with craven choices. Saw a car bumper the other day with "W" on one side and "Guiliani" on the other--can you reason with such a person? Would you want to?

I think some of this is the ghost of Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., who opposed the first Gulf War. He was highly thought of, an expert on defense issues, and seen as a possible presidential candidate. Until the first Gulf War.

All those people in Washington secretly see themselves as presidential timber. Nobody wants it to end before it begins.

"Does anyone remember what happened to the two Senators?"

Yes, both Senators Morse and Gruening lost in the next election. Morse lost to the "The Groper" Packwood - But, Senator Ron Wyden now holds, what is known as the "Morse seat" and voted against the FISA bill.

And Senator Gruening, lost, not to a Repug, but to Mike Gravell, or as my wife says, "Get that idiot off the stage".

I guess it all gets back to how easily frightened, and therefore manipulated, the American sheeple have become. The Republicans know and exploit this trait with glee and relish (hold the tomato).

howard: "i had a couple of DNC fundraisers come knock at my door a couple of days ago..."

Gregory: "... I only get them on the phone."

This isn't fair. They're not giving me the chance to slam the door or hang up the phone.

Allow me to make a slight correction to E.J's piece.

"The episode was the culmination of a shameful era in which serious issues related to national security and civil liberties were debated [by the Democrats] in a climate of fear and intimidation, saturated by political calculation and the quest for short-term electoral advantage."

This truly reflects the current state of the Congressional Democrats. They have no intention of presenting any plan to counter Bush regarding national security because to do so would threaten their majorities and make winning the White House in 08 that much harder.

Wasn't it Harry Reid himself who said that Chuck Schumer has shown him the polls that showed that the GOP support for the President on Iraq was going gain them seats in the Senate regardless of what the Dems do with their majority?

Still waiting for them to invoke Congress' "inherent contempt" powers and order the Segarent-At-Arms to force Rove, Meirs et al. to appear before them or risk being imprisioned in John Connors' or Pat Leahy's closet? Suckers!!

The problem with the rush to war wasn't only the manipulation of WMD intelligence, which I suppose someone with an advanced sense of political survival could use as an excuse to vote the "safe" way, it was the conflating of 9/11 with Saddam - an absolute fabulation by anyone's standards. AND Bush's definition of pre-emptive war to mean it's OK for this country to invade a sovereign nation because we want to. Remember, when Bush was asked for a reason to attack Saddam at a political gathering (in the South? I remember seeing it on TV) he said, "He tried to kill my Daddy." No, the politicians who voted for approval knew just what they were doing. They were voting for Desert Storm II for the wrong reasons. Too bad it turned out to be Vietnam Redux.

The bigger damage in the 'if terrorists attack' scenario is to the Democratic party as a whole. The politicians weren't willing to put themselves and the party in the position that would be exploited for the next generation of elections: the Dems don't have the backbone to defend America from its enemies. Remember how we got here in the first place (Vietnam)? Dems are still trying to dig out of that hole, thanks to unrelenting right-wing propaganda.

I think the unwritten assumption here is that Bush would allow a terrorist attack to occur on American soil SO he could blame the Dems.

The difference between the congressional Dems and us is, we don't think the public would buy it. But people are definitely fearful sheep, they allow torture after all, so maybe the Congressional Dems are right.

Nobody wants to risk being proved wrong in a way that's so crystal clear there's simply no chance of talking your way out of it. It's this fear that gives national security hawks the upper hand in any terror-related debate. Still.

"Proved wrong" by a terrorist attack?

A terrorist attack "proves" nothing. I don't care if it kills 3000 people and 30000 kittens when the lives of 300,000,000 are at stake. I just don't. You shouldn't either. Stop overreacting.

Of course it WILL happen again. As long as it's not too often I don't care. We had a Christian kill a couple hundred people in 1996. We had 3000 people die in 2001. Not bad actually. It's just a few days of smoking deaths or car accidents. A year of asthma-related deaths. Which Amendments did we throw away to prevent those? We didn't care, because the deaths don't occur in a spectacular showy fashion, and no crime was involved. Criminal intent really distorts our risk aversion. "They intend to kill us!" Unlike something like a bridge collapse, which doesn't "intend" to kill you. If the WTC collapsed from simple metal fatigue it would have faded in the news within weeks like a collapsed bridge.

(Of course car bombings happen every day in Iraq and dozens are killed. Apparently a slow trickle of foreign deaths in a foreign country is hardly worth a Darfur of thought to us.)

Reducing the probability of a terrorist attack to zero involves degradation of my quality of life. Not only do I get hassled at airports, my tax money supports phony boondoggles like the TSA and fiascoes like the Iraq War that actually get more Americans killed than die from terrorism. (But they "should have known" they were signing up to die, I forget. It's considered the soldiers' own fault they're dying; the righties worship soldiers but it's more related to their worship of cops, who have much safer occupations.)

The only way to get their attention is to throw out the ones who voted yes.

Ae least part of the problem with the type of black-and-white thinking that would regard the Democratic Party as some sort of monolithic entity is revealed below. Whatever its "numerical dominance" in the Congress, the Party's ranks contain a significant number of DINOs [Democrats in Name Only] like the faction discussed below, as well as various quislings and a few genuine mavericks.

The same clearly can't be said for the Republican Party, which apparently polices its own ranks in the style of the Gestapo. Even the term "moderate Republican" these days is virtually an oxymoron, with very few exceptions. Those who consider themselves such in the Senate can be counted on one hand, with fingers to spare!

Note again in reviewing the following that ONLY 2 Republican Representatives (none of the Senators) broke step with the Reich in that FISA civil liberties give-away. Any bets on how long those two are likely to REMAIN Representatives, at least under the GOP label?:

Blue Dog Democrats, Staunch Bush Allies
By Matt Renner [t r u t h o u t | Report]

A tightly-knit group of self-styled moderate and conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives known as the Blue Dog Coalition supported controversial legislation granting the Bush administration expanded powers to spy on Americans. The group was instrumental in passing legislation that was opposed by a vast majority of Democrats. ...

The Blue Dogs have provided key votes on controversial bills backed by the Bush administration. In September of 2006, 31 Democratic representatives voted with the Republican majority in the House to pass The Military Commissions Act. The controversial act empowered Bush to designate individuals as "enemy combatants," and deny them certain legal rights. Twenty-three of the Democrats who supported the bill were Blue Dogs. At 10:20 PM on Saturday, August 4, 2007, with the help of 31 Blue Dogs, the House Republicans passed the Protect America Act, a bill that altered the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and weakened safeguards against domestic warrantless wiretapping. The bill, a replica of a proposal by the Bush administration, passed with a 44 vote margin, with 227 Yeas and 183 Nays. Despite comprising 76 percent of the Democratic support for the bill, communications director for the Blue Dogs, Kristen Hawn, said that the Blue Dog Coalition took no official position on the bill. ...

the Dems don't have the backbone to defend America from its enemies.

This is, unfortunately true, at least when it comes to the Dems defending the US against its biggest *domestic* enemies: Bush and the GOP.

My senator Claire McCaskill ...

corpus juris: Damn fine blog post, that one at WTWC. Kudos for a job well done!
__________

Someone had asked previously about the no-shows in the FISA voting, so I thought I'd pass this along. It covers those absences with commendable thorougness:

Some Lawmakers Got a Headstart on Recess
[The Hill]

patience: The right solution here was to pass a bill through the house with all the nastiness stripped out, and get it to the Senate.

That was attempted the evening of 8/3. H.R. 3356, the bill that everyone thought the DNI had agreed to, would have passed under normal House rules (see here). The transcipt of that evening's House debate is enlightening.

Based on the transcript, I'd nominate Alcee Hastings for the hero of the hour award, with support from Silvestre Reyes and Jane Harman. We appear to have a few Representatives who are willing to not only vote the right way, but go to the mat on the chamber floor.

This was a mess. Basically the Dems thought they had a deal with McConnell. Then White House pulled the rug out from under them and the Democratic Caucus went into paralysis panic. In the end, the majority of them voted against the bill, but a large enough minority joined with the LOCK-STEP Republicans to give the White House a win. You'd think they would be more wise to this mess after all this time and so much bullshit. Pelosi and Reid got outmaneuvered by Bush & Co. Time to cue up Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools."

In other words, the Democrats are duly terrorized
into passing laws they disagree with and which would do little to stop such an attack, especially if it means they have to give up the same vacation the Iraqi parliament is criticized for taking.

If they are going to be that way, they are spineless wimps, we may as well let the Republicans keep the Executive Branch, and give them back Congress while we are at it, maybe that will get their attention.

If fear of another terrorist attack is going to dictate every decision government makes, the terrorists have won.

The Democrats have committed political suicide with their performance this year. Some Republicans were happy the Democrats won the House and Senate last November, I did not understand why at the time and thought it was just spin to mask their defeat. Now I understand.

Guess those Anthrax attacks really scared them.
Those who did that are the real terrorists the Democrats are scared of, not the guy hiding in a cave. Funny how no one talks about the status of that investigation anymore, especially as they guy they tried to pin it on in Iraq didn't seem to have any.

Dan, the only way to truly get their attention is to cause the Democratic party to lose the next election. And every election after that until they understand that without us they won't be able to win anything.

This isn't just the fault of the ones who voted for it. The Leadership should have never scheduled a vote. If the caucus didn't favor this bill, they could have forced the leadership not to schedule the vote. That they didn't do either proves that they wanted this bill.

Why the Democrats caved on the FISA vote is obvious and irrelevant. When the 2000 Year Old Man (played by Me Brooks) was interviewed and asked (by Carl Reiner) what was the main mode of transportation "back then", Brooks replied "FEAR, MAINLY FEAR". So there you have it. This wisdom still begs the question - who runs the Government?

The executive branch has become no less than a boardroom, its members having lost interest in their uninformed shareholders, "we the people" and thus become organically, reflexively self-serving and self-perpetuating - like an amoeba with its accompanying dearth of critical thinking skills.

The judiciary accepted the illicit invitation from this White House into that boardroom and has acquired a taste for the arrogant, activist and anti-constitutional fare catered by our present executives. History will record that this branch, Court AND the DOJ, has extinguished our most fundamental freedoms to protect us from an enemy whose objective is to extinguish our most fundamental freedoms. And only history itself will reveal whether such freedoms, so easily "rendered", can ever be recovered. Many doubt so. Some even think that, given this adminstration's expansion of executive power, our suspended liberties are NOT intended for reinstatement.

And the Congress - it's like a meeting of Gamblers' Anonymous wherein the legislators have concluded that the very best solution to their problem (an unremitting obsession with reelection) is to become a "bookie". First, last and always its about the odds. That the Dems would wager 6 months of PROCLAIMED tyranny on their reelection should come as no surprise. After all, every jukie's dream is to be a dealer.