Tag! We're it!

mcjoan alerts us this morning:

It's developed from speculation to obliquely sourced possibility to pretty likely that the House is going to cave and give Bush his Protect AT&T Act. For no good reason at all.

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While we're talking about hearings that should happen before any further action is taken on telco amnesty, or indeed any intelligence matter before the Congress, maybe Reyes would want to spend some time looking into Bush's Friday massacre of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, now to be known as the Intelligence Advisory Board. Along with the "foreign" being excised, so was any oversight capacity by that Board of any intelligence activity.
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What's missing? That's right: "assure the legality of the activities of the Intelligence Community." This administration is attempting to make all intelligence activities--foreign and domestic--by the government extra-legal, outside of the jurisdiction of the courts and completely under the purview of his office. Telco amnesty is just one part of that effort. Seems like something the Congress's Intelligence Committees, as well as Judiciary, would want to look into a bit.

Just because the executive no longer believes in the rule of law and is doing its damnedest to cut the judiciary out of any oversight of intelligence, it doesn't mean the legislative branch should follow suit.

Kagro X then posts an open letter to Congress:

The Bush "administration" is trying to scare you into covering up their tracks again, telling you that if you don't make the Protect AT&T Act permanent and give the telecom companies retroactive amnesty for their lawbreaking, they might stop "helping" the "government" find "terrorists."

But do you know what happened when the Protect AT&T Act expired?

Nothing.

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Why not let the judges -- whose actual job it is to be fair to everyone who comes into their courtrooms -- worry about being fair to the telecom companies?

Why not let federal judges -- who don't and can't take $5,000 campaign checks from the telecom companies -- worry about being fair?

Can any of you explain to us why it's "fair" to let the telecom companies lobby you, fly you on their corporate jets, and give you thousands upon thousands of dollars for your campaigns, and then take the decision on "fairness" away from the impartial judges and give it to you?

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If that doesn't sway you, would you at least consider the political and strategic value of trying to win one damn thing during this Congress, before asking America to trust you again in November?

This is so important I hope mcjoan and Kagro X will forgive my copying more than 3 paragraphs each (the usual fair use rule of thumb). Go read all by clicking on the links.

Glenn Greenwald comments:

This is, of course, everything except surprising. No rational person who has watched Congressional Democrats since they took over Congress could possibly have expected them to do anything but what they always do: namely, whatever they're told to do by the White House. The last thing they were ever going to do was stand their ground over Americans' basic liberties and the rule of law, concepts about which they couldn't possibly care less.
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But what is somewhat baffling in all of this is just how politically stupid and self-destructive their behavior is. If the plan all along was to give Bush everything he wanted, as it obviously was, why not just do it at the beginning? Instead, they picked a very dramatic fight that received substantial media attention. They exposed their freshmen and other swing-district members to attack ads. They caused their base and their allies to spend substantial energy and resources defending them from these attacks.
And now, after picking this fight and letting it rage for weeks, they are going to do what they always do -- just meekly give in to the President, yet again generating a tidal wave of headlines trumpeting how they bowed, surrendered, caved in, and lost to the President. They're going to cast the appearance that they engaged this battle and once again got crushed, that they ran away in fear because of the fear-mongering ads that were run and the attacks from the President. They further demoralize their own base and increase the contempt in which their base justifiably holds them (if that's possible). It's almost as though they purposely picked the path that imposed on themselves all of the political costs with no benefits.

It is to weep.

But I have a better idea.

Don't take your anger out on yourself with depression or despair. Get angry and stay angry at those who deserve your anger and hold them accountable.

Get out your 2x4 and whack them upside the head so hard their ears ring all the way to November when every House member faces, that's right, re-election.

Want to contact your congresscritters? You can do it HERE.
--the BB