A Saner Head On FISA
I’m not sure I agree with Neil the “Werewolf” on this one, but it’s nice that he’s trying to console us. I do feel a bit better, but I’m not buying into this statement:
This bill is basically the same kind of garden-variety corruption one expects from Congress — protecting wealthy interests at the expense of ordinary folk. That’s why it’s a bad piece of legislation. But Congress passes junk like that all the time (the farm bill, lots of defense appropriations, not bargaining hard with Big Pharma, etc) and it’s not the end of the world. And that’s why I’m writing this post — I don’t want people to lose perspective and think that this is too much more than just another garden-variety bit of corporate corruption. It’s a lot closer to the tax breaks for ceiling fan importers that it is to torture.
It’s a bit more troubling than all that Neil, a few more basic principles and American freedoms are at stake here, don’t you think?
And the problem is broader than Neil paints with his singular focus on the imperative that we must replace George Bush and his entire criminal enterprise from the executive branch — and of course than requires that anyone with an “R” after their name is no longer welcome at any White House Bar-B-Q’s. (No, seriously. Forget about the post-partisan crap about retaining someone like Gates at DoD or any similar “enlightened” nonsense. They ALL have to go.)
Neil begins with the simple premis that , “This is a legislative precedent that emerged because Steny Hoyer decided that it would be good business to sell the telcos the immunity they wanted in exchange for campaign contributions.” But that doesn’t reveal the whole picture. Hoyer would never have been placed in such an untenable position, knowing he would be labeled as a bought and paid for hack by even well-meaning analysts like Neil if the Democrats in the House weren’t hamstrung by the turncoat Blue-Dogs who vote with the GOP on damn near everything that matters, and thus as loyal to Bush as John McCain.
Now I don’t know if these DINO’s will have an epiphany when Barack Obama takes the oath of office, or will have some enlightenment shoved down their throats. But I do know that haveing the equivalent of 40 or so Joe Liebermans filling space in the Democratic Caucus and marching in lock-step with the remnants of Tom DeLay’s outfit is THE principle reason Congress as an institution is despised more than anything, ever.
So thanks Neil, I do feel a bit better, but I’m looking for more than merely an inauguration ushering a new era. I’m looking for a purge.
Sadly, I’ll probably be disappointed on both counts. But in the true spirit of a Cleveland sports fan and apostle of St. Wiley E. Coyote and the Church of Never Say Die, that certainly doesn’t mean I’ll accept the notion that the Perfect is the enemy of the Good.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Of course you are right. But why is Obama being punished. He has said he will retract or investigate Bush’s crimes.
But he is running a national election that will be real close. Why should he make his campaign on this. You really think the VAST majority of Americans know what FISA means. Go ask them. 99% of the people on the street will tell you it is a soccer league.
Of course this is important. But there are many issues that real people are dealing with.
So the blogoshere is going to bitch and whine for a week.
June 21st, 2008 at 7:03 pm
As I noted earlier, If not now, when, if not us, who?
We wait to voice our displeasure, or worse, until Obama reasches the point where he doesn’t need our support, or worse, proved he doesn’t?
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:38 am
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Hey, how ’bout FIRST we win an election, for a change?
Playing the moral martyrs is what lead to this. I blame the lefty purists for Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I & Bush II, and McCain if he gets in. Explain your pretty scruples to 100,000+ dead Iraqi’s. Oh, wait, you can’t THEY’RE DEAD!!! Well, at least you still have your principles.
This is a bad thing. But, obviously, nobody outside the tiny little puffed-up “blogosphere” cared about it, in the Dem’s estimation. And nobody inside that sphere ever goes outside, attends Party meetings, and spends ten or twenty years doing the dirty and difficult work it takes to effect real political change. So who cares what they think?
No sense picking a fight on a losing issue, especially not with your own Party, when you need their support in their stomping grounds. Now is the time for the ugly process of “moving toward the Center;” i.e. the Right, in real terms. Now is the time to focus on destroying the Republican Party, so that later, we can purge our own ranks of their DINO collaborators.
If you’re worried about whether Obama will do that after the election, bring ten friends down to your local Democratic Party headquarters, and start working to provide Obama with the support he will need to move us all back to the left. If we don’t do that, all of this is for nothing: Come next January, the DINOsaurs will rule.
Work in the real world for change, or kwitchyerbitchin. If you don’t like things the way they are, you should have started working within the two-partyy system twenty years ago. If you don’t start now, we’ll all be that much worse off in 2028.
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June 22nd, 2008 at 9:34 am
Damn dirty hippies can be blamed for everything then, right? If it weren’t for them, this would be the land of milk and honey.
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:34 pm
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Yeah, that’s what I said, Mark. Word for word.
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