August 4, 2007, Party like it's 2002
Ah, don't we all remember August, 2002? We were all getting ready for that manly celebration of September 11th +1.0, when the President could tell us how manly he handled the whole thing because he showed up a week later with a bullhorn, kind of like how he did back at dear old Yale and Andover with the boy-cheerleader teams. Andy Card told us we didn't roll out new products in August. And I concluded that a war in Iraq was being played for domestic political purposes, to wit, to corner Democrats into a no win situation of either supporting an unjustified war or being paiinted as "soft on terrorism" (as if they wouldn't be anyway), and decided once and for all that I was opposed to the Iraq war for good.
Its 2007, now, and Democrats are in control of both houses of Congress (really?), Iraq has gone to hell in a hand-basket (and will keep going further and further to hell), the President's ideological and heavy-handed tactics have been widely discredited, the Attorney General blatantly lies to Congress and no one takes any action to stop him, the President's approval rating hovers in the 20's... and yet...
As in 2002, when, lest we forget, the Senate Majority Leader's name was Tom Daschle, the President quite literally says "boo!" and Democrats in Congress fall over each other to give him what he wants, in this case, the Senate overwhelmingly passed legal ratification of the ability to conduct warrantless surveillance on American citizens for political purposes by modifying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA") to eliminate judicial oversight, at least for the next six months.
Harry Reid voted against it in every way except the one way that mattered: he had the power to keep this piece of shit off of the Senate floor altogether, and to tell the President that when the President started respecting the Constitution and the rights of the American people, then he could start suggesting legislation of this kind... and not dictating to another branch of government what it should pass or when it should recess. And instead, on this, we get "an up or down vote". Jebus.
But, as digby suggests, we can presume that the D.C. cocktail party circuit is all abuzz about fear of terrrrrrrrrorists attacking Washington any God damned moment... and, unbelievably, Democrats believe that they would be blamed for it. And again, methinks, why was it I worked so hard to get this party in the majority again, so we could get exactly the same results as if they weren't?
Hackneyed and overplayed as it is, I guess the guy whose office happens to be a block from the World Trade Center site, as it was on September 11, 2001 (that would be me) is once again reduced to stunned speechlessness, and quoting Ben Franklin: "They who would give up their precious liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security." And if George W. Bush is in charge, we will likely end up with neither anyway.
And after over 6 1/2 years of disastrous administration of our government by George W. Bush, Democratic members of Congress seem incapable of figuring this out. Remarkable. A long-- a very long-- 534 days to go.
Comments
Sometimes I hate your blog because you are so damned rational, logical and empirical. Isn't there any place for hope? I realize there are a number of people in the wrong place at the wrong time who have been stuck in Gitmo for five plus years. But still, no hope?
Posted by sab at August 5, 2007 8:37 AM