I am supporting Cindy Sheehan in her run against Nancy Pelosi. I urge fellow bloggers and San Franciscans to do the same. It was not an easy decision. I’ve been a longtime supporter of Pelosi. Scroll down to the gold graphic in the right sidebar to see how high my estimation of her was.

John Dean noted today just how bad the FISA bill’s passage was:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to the chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, requesting they develop legislation “addressing the many deficiencies” of the temporary law as soon as Congress returns from its recess.

Even though the White House got everything it demanded from Congress, it is requesting even more. When signing the Protect America Act, Bush said, “When Congress returns in September, the Intelligence Committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, including the important issues of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001.”

Bush also wants legislative immunity for the American companies, and government officials (including himself), to protect them from criminal prosecution for violating the criminal provision of FISA. As readers will recall, before Congress caved and gave Bush power to conduct this surveillance, he - and telecommunication companies simply opted to do so illegally. Now, Bush will claim, with some justification, that because Congress has now made legal actions that were previously illegal, it should retroactively clear up this nasty problem facing all those who broke the law at his command.

If the Democrats fail to stand up to the bullying of this weak president, and ignore his demands for more unaccountability, they might as well start looking for another line of work. Not only are their fellow rank and file Democrats going to turn on them in 2008, but the overwhelming numbers of independents who assisted them in regaining power are going to desert them in droves.

At bottom, Democrats truly only need to add one fix to this dangerous law: meaningful accountability. They must do so, or face the consequences.

I think Dean didn’t go far enough. Bush tricked Ted Kennedy with his NCLB education bill. He tricked Congress in October 2002 to grant authorization for the use of the military, then rushed to war after UN inspectors were in, WMD evidence was nowhere and Saddam was actually destroying missiles.

I’m convinced he’ll use this opening granted by Pelosi to make it impossible to close the door again. Blue Dog Dems have surrendered all our Constitution’s checks and balances. But they could not have moved the legislation without Pelosi’s compliance.

Cindy Sheehan, though a political amateur, has proven repeatedly that she’ll stand up against anyone in pursuit of better government decisionmaking. Defeating Pelosi - a sitting House Speaker - is the strongest possible message we can send to the Elect within our party, the ones the Netroots helped elect.

I hope to see primary challenges against every Dem who handed Bush the keys to the careening car that threatens to crash and burn up our Constitution. We must take democracy back before we can take our country back.

I’m tired of hearing (and saying) how weak the Democrats our. We are the party and we are not weak. A significant number of our elected Dems are weak and we must replace them for the strength of the whole.

Please join me in supporting Cindy Sheehan. The country you save can be your own. And should be.