The Young Turks

On the one had, Democrats will keep telling you that they can't get anything passed in this Congress because the Republicans have 41 Senators that they can filibuster any legislation with. On the other hand, the Republicans will now get this telecom immunity passed through Congress. So, do the Democrats not have 41 Senators, so they can block this bill? Of course they do. They just don't have the nerve. They are collaborators.

I don't believe there is anything the President could have done that would make the Democrats actually challenge him. He broke this law, admitted it, rubbed it in their faces and then made them pass a law that immunizes his law breaking. What other laws could the president have broken? Based on this precedent, just about anything.

If they cared to do this right, the proper strategy would have been painfully easy. Pass an intelligence bill that closes the foreign communication loophole (the only real national security issue that has to be addressed) and don't put in any provision about telecom immunity. Then send it to the president. Have him veto it. And then scream bloody murder that the president is jeopardizing national security. Because he would be.

Telecom immunity has nothing to do with national security at this point. First of all, it's retroactive, so it has nothing to do with current security issues. Secondly, they'll have their day in court. If they are right, then they have nothing to worry about. Their actions will be judged to be legal and they will have no liability. Problem solved.

It's not that this case is hard to make. It's that the Democrats don't want to make it. That's because they don't want to make any case or pick any fight or win on any issue. They are scared to death of the Republicans, to this day as the Republicans are running for the hills and figuring out how many more seats they are going to lose in Congress.

One quick side note. This might mean the Democrats lack all courage. It might mean they are callous and want to lose on purpose. But it doesn't mean they're stupid. They have calculated that policy losses will lead to political victories. And it looks like they are right. But these policy losses have real consequences for our country and our constitution.

Think about this for example. If the president is authorized to order private companies to break the law for national security, why couldn't he order other companies to do a break in - say at a complex like the Watergate building in Washington - and then say it was for national security?

You say that's absurd? But what is warrantless wiretapping but a break-in? It's breaking and entering into your private conversations and communications without a warrant and outside of the law. Do we even know who they wiretapped? Isn't it possible that the Democrats are now retroactively authorizing wiretaps of their own phones?

Since I am still a naïve and gullible guy, I don't think the Bush administration wiretapped the Democrats. But I have no basis for believing that. How do we know if they did or didn't? How do we know the Democrats aren't immunizing this very act? They don't know, because they didn't even bother to find out who got wiretapped and for what reason.

Now, I have to give the standard caveats about how there are some who do the right thing in the Democratic Party. I will give the standard example of Russ Feingold (he is the standard example because he seems to be the only who does the right thing on a regular basis). Having said that, if you think your particular Congressman or Senator is one of the good ones, you're probably wrong. This is capitulation en masse. They almost all go along to get along.

And then of course there is the standard caveat about how the Republicans are worse. Yes, of course, they are. They are the ones committing the crimes in the first place. But I get them, I get their motivation. It's the stomach churning capitulation by the Democrats that's infuriating. Who respects a collaborator? Aren't those the kind of people you least want to be associated with?

The main advantage of the Democrats is that they know we have nowhere to turn. They know we're smart enough to not vote for these Republicans. And that might be true in the short-term. But we better be making plans to throw these bums out the next time around. Make a list of all the people who collaborated with the Republicans when it mattered. And in due time, they should all get a knock on the door, from a primary opponent. Let's make a list and check it twice. And never forget those names.

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