As usual, E. J. Dionne has it right, this time on the reasons for the Democrats’ capitulation to Bush on warrantless surveillance.
“Even some very liberal Democrats worried about the political costs of blocking action (on the FISA bill) before the summer recess. That Saturday night, the House sent the president a bill that, as a disgusted Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) put it, with just a touch of exaggeration, ‘makes Alberto Gonzalez the sheriff, the judge and the jury.’ “
If this is how the Democrats plan to act to “preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States of America” we are all doomed.
“The episode was the culmination of a shameful era in which serious issues related to national security and civil liberties were debated in a climate of fear and intimidation, saturated by political calculation and the quest for short-term electoral advantage.”
Dionne also says that Pelosi received more than 200,000 e-mails of protest for letting the bill go forward.
“The entire display was disgraceful because an issue of such import should not be debated in a political pressure cooker. It’s not even clear that new legislation was required; Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.), for one, believes many of the problems with handling interceptions involving foreign nationals are administrative in nature and that beefing up and reorganizing the staff around the FISA court might solve the outstanding problems.
But if legislation was needed, there were many ways to grant necessary authority while preserving real oversight. The Democrats got trapped, and they punted. The Republicans have never met a national security issue they’re not willing to politicize. This is no way to run a superpower.”