Carl Hulse reports on the GOP rebellion against the President:
Intramural fights in politics often have an element of calculation if not orchestration, and the White House’s political shop is no doubt aware that allowing Congressional Republicans to put some distance between themselves and Mr. Bush in an election year could serve the party’s long-term interest.
Whether theatrics or something more fundamental, some Republicans say that the port fight and scrutiny of the surveillance program show a new willingness to confront the White House and that it is a fitting moment for Congress to declare its independence.
“If there was ever a good time for Congress to figure out oversight, it would be in the sixth year of a presidency,” said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 3 House Republican, well aware that the party in power typically loses seats at the midpoint of a president’s second term.
That instinct for political survival is helping to stiffen the Congressional spine.
For some reason, reading this called to mind a line from Woody Allen’s Hannah & Her Sisters where Frederick says: “If Jesus came back and saw what’s going on in His name, He’d never stop throwing up.”
The idea, from Roy Blunt, that the GOP has suddenly “figured out oversight” (even if only for the basest self-serving reasons) is a cruel joke.
In the same paper, today, Scott Shane and David D. Kirkpatrick report:
The plan by Senate Republicans to step up oversight of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program would also give legislative sanction for the first time to long-term eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant, legal experts said on Wednesday.
We are watching our country slip into an authoritarian state. And the New York Times is offering us up tripe about the GOP “calculating a political fight” to cynically distance themselves from Der Fuhrer. Sorry if I am not impressed.
Tell Harry Reid to shut down the Senate until we have NSA hearings. This is not a joke. This is our Republic that is at stake.
