This is not about the Democrats who voted against Bush's FISA bill

ProSense

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Sun Aug-05-07 10:12 AM
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This is not about the Democrats who voted against Bush's FISA bill

Every time SOME Democrats sell out our ideals, the stop attacking the party cries begin. This is not about the Democrats who did the right thing, but we have every right to express our overall displeasure with those who betrayed those ideals. We also have a right to let the leadership know the dispiriting nature of these actions, which affect the entire country. So when an elected Democrat, from a state other than my own, supports these actions, I need to let my representatives know and also the party leadership, including the presidential candidates.

I'm a Democrat. I do not support illegal spying, the immoral Iraq war and illegal spying. I do not expect Congressional Democrats to support these activities.

So I'm outraged! I do not want excuses, and the statements by Democrats who supported Bush's FISA bill sounds like excuses. It's obvious their actions were motivated by fear! I want the truth (and it will not come from those who are complicit).

So what did they vote for...

Pelosi:

Many provisions of this legislation are unacceptable, and, although the bill has a six month sunset clause, I do not believe the American people will want to wait that long before corrective action is taken.

Reid:

Rather than pass this bill, my Republican colleagues chose to rubberstamp a flawed Administration proposal that fails to provide the accountability needed in light of the Administration’s repeated past mismanagement of key tools in the war on terror.

Rockefeller:

My opposition to the final bill was based on the fact that it did not include the privacy protections and safeguards American citizens deserve and expect...Instead, this bill undermines the FISA Court and concedes unprecedented authority to the Attorney General.

Glenn Greenwald just updated this excellent piece, Democrats' responsibility for Bush radicalism, with comments from Senator Dodd:

UPDATE II: This afternoon I interviewed Sen. Chris Dodd, who more than any other presidential candidate is attempting to make issues of executive power and constitutional encroachments the centerpiece of his campaign. I'll post the entire transcript and some commentary in a few days, but for now here is part of the discussion we had concerning last night's FISA vote in the Senate (Dodd, along with Obama and Clinton, voted against the FISA bill):

GG: Can you describe what you think it is that motivated 16 of your colleagues in the Democratic caucus to vote in favor of this bill?

CD: No, I really can't . . . We had caucuses during the day, so everyone knew what was there. You had a vote at 10:00 at night, people say I didn't know what was there, then normally I can understand, but we had a caucus during the day. There was a lot of conversation about it.

<...>

I also asked Dodd why Democrats repeatedly engage in the same self-destructive behavior -- refusing to take a hard-core principled stance against the administration, and instead capitulating just enough to look like losers, but -- despite the capitulation -- still allowing the vote to be used against them. As always (see e.g., Iraq War Authorization, warrantless eavesdropping, Military Commissions Act), they capitulate in order to prevent the vote from being used against them, even though it ends up being used against them anyway because so many of them vote (with futility) against it, but do so without ever fighting for, explaining or defending their position.

I also asked him why, when they were in the minority, the Democrats were so afraid to filibuster anything, even something as drastic as the Military Commissions Act or the Alito nomination, whereas the Republicans run around filibustering everything they can find and don't care at all about being called "obstructionist." Why are the Republicans so aggressive with using their minority tools to block all Democratic initiatives whereas Democrats failed to filibuster for years?

Dodd, by his own candid admission, has no good explanation for the Democrats' behavior, which repeats itself endlessly. He has no good explanation as to why so many of his Democratic colleagues are so deeply afraid of being attacked by one of the weakest presidents in modern American history.

Although Dodd's convictions about the constitutional issues are impressively authentic and come from a place of real passion, and although he agreed with most of the criticisms voiced regarding the timidity of Congressional Democrats, I found the interview rather dispiriting, to put it mildly. That was not due to Dodd per se, but because it is clear that Beltway Democrats have no real strategy for doing anything differently or even any real awareness that something different is necessary.

link

He said Democrats, but I didn't read this as scrap the party or leave the party. We should be able to criticize and express displeasure, especially in the mind-boggling instances of Democrats supporting illegal spying and torture.