Democrats’ Responsibility for Bush Radicalism

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/04/2980/

Published on Saturday, August 4, 2007 by Salon.com

Democrats’ Responsibility for Bush Radicalism
by Glenn Greenwald

It is staggering, and truly disgusting, that even in August, 2007 — almost six years removed from the 9/11 attacks and with the Bush presidency cemented as one of the weakest and most despised in American history — that George W. Bush can “demand” that the Congress jump and re-write legislation at his will, vesting in him still greater surveillance power, by warning them, based solely on his say-so, that if they fail to comply with his demands, the next Terrorist attack will be their fault. And they jump and scamper and comply (Meteor Blades has the list of the 16 Senate Democrats voting in favor; the House will soon follow).

<snip>

Examine virtually every Bush scandal and it increasingly bears the mark not merely of Democratic capitulation, but Democratic participation. In August of 2006, the Supreme Court finally asserted the first real limit on Bush’s radical executive power theories in Hamdan, only for Congress, months later, to completely eviscerate those minimal limits — and then go far beyond — by enacting the grotesque Military Commissions Act with the support of substantial numbers of Democrats. What began as a covert and illegal Bush interrogation and detention program became the officially sanctioned, bipartisan policy of the United States.

Grave dangers are posed to our basic constitutional safeguards by the replacement of Sandra Day O’Connor with Sam Alito, whose elevation to the Supreme Court Congressional Democrats chose to permit. Vast abuses and criminality in surveillance remain undisclosed, uninvestigated and unimpeded because Congressional Democrats have stood meekly by while the administration refuses to disclose what it has been doing in how it spies on us. And we remain in Iraq, in direct defiance of the will of the vast majority of the country, because the Democratic Beltway establishment lacks both the courage and the desire to compel an end to that war.

<snip>
I don’t have time this morning to dissect the various excesses and dangers of the new FISA amendments, though Marty Lederman and Steve Benen both do a typically thorough job in that regard. Suffice to say, craven fear, as usual, is the author of this debacle.
..more..

[msongs]

1. bullies get worse and worse until somebody or something stops them

and bushco knows there is NOBODY going to stop them.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[Usrename]

6. Fascist regimes are not stopped from within.

Eventually our hopes may have to shift to China to stop them. I wish I was being sarcastic.

[H2O Man]

2. Good article.

Thanks for posting it.

Nominated.

[G_j]

9. I'm sure you remember

watching Dems approve Ashcroft, Gonzales, Extreme RW Supreme Court members, the "Bankruptcy Bill" etc. etc..

I wrote so many letters and made so many calls concerning so many of these things, I'm still tired..

[Breeze54]

3. K & R

[rodeodance]

4. sadly, it is true.

[ginnyinWI]

5. a silver lining?

I read in my newspaper that the FISA amendments are going to expire in six months. They are not permanent (yet).

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. And they didn't have to be approved in the first place

If we had Dems with spine, we wouldn't see bush given this power at all! :grr:

[Lone_Wolf]

7. This used to called the "Good cop, bad cop" routine...

Many of the Congress critters don't work on behalf of the American people.

[fed-up]

8. this is why so many are questioning the dem party-has it been totally compromised?? nt

[Hydra]

10. The sad part is, it might be

Too many things are looking to be either acts of fearful capitulation(while we hold the high ground, and public opinion is on our side), or support for such legislation cloaked as such.

If indeed we are currently not represented, how long has this been the case? How much blood, sweat and tears have we offered to people who were never there to work for us in the first place?

I suppose time will tell. It always does.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. After Conyers refused to move on impeachment,

I am convinced they have been compromised.

[G_j]

11. =

[farmboxer]

12. They know Dems are very afraid of them.

They will always get their way. Hell, I am almost ready to give up period. "If" I bother to vote this time, I will still vote for the jackass, never a repub, but it's getting very difficult to forgive Dems for kissing Bush's feet.

I rarely post anymore, but I am Mad as Hell and am not going to take it anymore. Yes, I did not donoate to Dems Party this time around, they can get it from their corporate masters, or better still, why not ask Bush for a donation?

[dbt]

13. From your fingertips to the Goddess's ear!