First, we have the scoop on the Senate’s filibuster-shy cowards by Steven D, here by Howie in Seattle, and here by BooMan.
Then we have the madmen — the madmen who run this country and make cowards out of every Democrat who refuses to stand up to their insane, cruel, inhuman, and inhumane policies.
The blogosphere is atwitter over Glenn Greenwald’s discovery of a 2002 Senate statement (via Intoxination blog). The WaPo puts it succinctly:
The Bush administration rejected a 2002 Senate proposal that would have made it easier for FBI agents to obtain surveillance warrants in terrorism cases, concluding that the system was working well and that it would likely be unconstitutional to lower the legal standard.
Among the breathless blog story titles: “Crooks and Liars: FISA lies exposed by Greenwald — John / AMERICAblog: This is huge. … — Michelle Pilecki / The Huffington Post: Administration Flip-Flopped on FISA.
Call me an brassy NYC-ish bitch drenched in dew and covered in moss in my Olympic rain-foresty clime, but I don’t think this means diddly-squat. One of my overly frank mother’s rules was: “Tell it like it is.”
So here’s “it like it is”: This “flip-flop” matters only to us lefty bloggers and to a few sane people like Brenda Stewart. It won’t mean a thing in the news cycle, or god knows in Congress, the Dept. of Justice, or — heavens to Betsy [Ross] — the White House. Laura Rozen at War & Piece, who quotes Atrios, Knight-Ridder, and the WaPo, calls it like it is:
“Entirely inconsistent” is the polite, academic way of saying big fat liars. But it’s even worse than that. Lying would suggest they held some regard for the truth at some point. Who needs to be consistent? Who needs to modify a law? Karl Rove was happy to make the lie itself and breaking the law itself part of some campaign strategy. Their contempt for the truth, their true contempt for the intelligence and manipulability of the public, knows no bounds.
“Knows no bounds.” Nor does the Bush administration know — by any empirical evidence that I can perceive — any viable opposing force in the Democratic party or members of Congress.
I ask you: What in the hell are we going to do to try to save this country? Clap every time the brave John Conyers holds an unofficial hearing that goes nowhere, and keep bitching?
Or can we can die knowing we tried to save our form of government that has never worked as it should — as Howard Zinn reminded me last night on UCTV, in a replay of “Embracing Humanity: Truth in a Time of War with Howard Zinn” (watch it yourself!) — but was a hell of a lot better before we had a one-party dictatorship?
And, lastly, who are the REAL madmen here? The Bush criminals or those among us who give them a pass every time?
P.S. Laura Rozen is herself a fine journalist whose investigative work was recently cited by former CIA/State Dept. analyst Larry Johnson at BoomanTribune.com: “A New Case of CIA Waterboarding?.” In the comments section of that story, I provided more links that Laura sent me after I alerted her to Larry’s story.
