A question for my progressive friends

So I see where Daily Kos, and TPM, and everybody else are having some collective midlife crisis over Obama and the FISA thing. "Core Democratic values" and "purism and pragmatism" and "betrayal" and so forth. My question, if there's anybody out there this summer:

Is it weird that I don't give a damn about this? And that I'm much more interested in, say, Obama's use of Sherrod Brown on trade? Am I a bad member of the netroots? I'm really just wondering...

Kristol's latest

From Kristol's NY Times column:

"Both have taken positions appropriate for the Democratic primaries — for a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, against making it easier for telecommunications companies to cooperate with the government in spying on terrorists, for tax hikes and against a ban on partial-birth abortion — that should cause difficulties in a general election."

The--let me rephrase Kristol's formulation--"making it more difficult for telecom companies to get away with breaking the law" position that Obama and Clinton are taking is unlikely to hurt them in the general. Bill Foster just won Dennis Hastert's speech in a special election, in a pretty red district, and he did so while saying the following:

"The President and his allies in Congress are playing politics with national security, and that’s wrong. Nobody is above the law and telecom companies who engaged in illegal surveillance should be held accountable, not given retroactive immunity. I flatly oppose giving these companies an out for cooperating with Alberto Gonzalez on short-circuiting the FISA courts and the rule of law."

Was that so difficult? Even if people don't fully understand the issues in play here, it's easy to convince voters that the Republicans are full of crap on this if you just make the case. At this point it's easiest just to make a prima facie assumption that Republicans are lying until proven otherwise.

Oh, and by the way, Kristol ends his column in this way:

"But whomever he picks, and whatever issues he emphasizes, McCain should keep following Danton’s injunction: “Il faut de l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace.”

Pompous much? 

Telecom Immunity, Round II

I'll heed Markus's call and take this opportunity to pen an update on the prospect that our Congressional Democrats will sell out the judicial process in exchange for some campaign contributions and Feeling Important. The large media coverage of this whole travesty has been pretty close to zilch, so I've been getting most of my information from Glenn Greenwald and TPMMuckraker. For starters, let's just look at what Reid said on the floor of the Senate the other day:

[I]f people think they are going to talk this to death, we are going to be in here all night. This is not something we are going to have a silent filibuster on. If someone wants to filibuster this bill, they are going to do it in the openness of the Senate.

Normally I would be over-joyed to have Reid say something like that, because it's exactly what progressive Dems have been asking him to do pretty much since the beginning of this Congressional term. But up until now, Reid has been either 1) too a-scared that people would think bad things about him, or 2) too a-scared that his Republican pals would snub him at the lunch table in the Senate cafeteria. 

And now here's Chris Dodd--probably, at this point, the Senator I respect most--and Reid has chosen this moment to stand up for majority rule. And that's not all. Glenn Greenwald:

As I noted in my post yesterday, Reid had the audacity to send his spokesman, Jim Manley, to falsely claim to the New York Times that "Senator Reid intends to do everything he can to strip immunity from the bill" -- even though the exact opposite is true. Reid is engaged in at least as much maneuvering to ensure that Bush and Cheney get what they want here as McConnell would be willing to do if he were the Majority Leader.

Go to Greenwald's site to read the transcript of an obviously-scripted exchange (one might say collusion) between Reid and his ostensible adversary Mitch McConnell. 

And just today, this:

Ending months of resistance, the White House has agreed to give House members access to secret documents about its warrantless wiretapping program, a congressional official said Thursday.

The Bush administration is trying to convince the House to protect from civil lawsuits the telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans without the approval of a court. Congress created the court 30 years ago to oversee such activities.

House Intelligence and Judiciary committee members and staff will begin reading the documents at the White House Thursday, said an aide to Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

On the surface this seems fine, of course, but we should know from experience by now that we can't count on the Bush administration to turn over any truly incriminating documents; more likely they 'recycled' them, "consistent with industry best practices," but inconsistent with the law. And this disclosure is part of a deal--at least the appearance of Congressional oversight in exchange for votes on immunity. 

When this, or some other less clearly ludicrous but equally effective form of immunity passes the Congress, it's going to be a sad day. I agree with what seems to be a widespread sentiment: we need more and better Democrats. And I think that 'better' should probably come before 'more.'  No one should be afraid of primary challenges.

From the AP

I'm sorry, but this  is just an inexcusably bad news story:

WASHINGTON -- The Senate late Monday delayed its consideration of a vote on a new government eavesdropping bill until January.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) delayed the bill because there were more than a dozen amendments planned, and not enough time remaining on the legislative calendar to manage them.

"Everyone feels it would be to the best interests of the Senate that we take a look at this when we come back after the first of the year," Reid said.

The new surveillance bill is meant to replace a temporary eavesdropping law Congress hastily passed in August. That law, which expanded the government's authority to listen in on American communications without court permission, expires Feb. 1.

The White House expressed disappointment with the delay.

"Each day of delay brings us closer to reopening a dangerous intelligence gap that we closed last summer," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Monday night.

The Senate is grappling with how to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law that dictates when federal agents must obtain court permission before tapping phone and computer lines inside the United States to gather intelligence on foreign threats.

Agents may tap lines outside the country without court permission.

Not only uninformative but misleading. How could they write an article on this and fail to mention Dodd, the filibuster, and telecom immunity? This doesn't even qualify as reporting. It's faulty stenography.

Reid pulls FISA Legislation

Reid pulled the FISA bill containing telecom immunity until after the break. Bravo to Dodd, Kennedy, Feingold, and others who fought to keep this from passing. There'll be more fights on this ahead.

There's plenty of time between now and then to let our Senators know how we feel on this issue. 

Reid fails to oppose telecom immunity; Dodd to filibuster

Here's a wonderful example of leadership from Senator Reid:

I have determined that in this situation, it would be wrong of me to simply choose one committee’s bill over the other. I personally favor many of the additional protections included in the Judiciary Committee bill, and I oppose the concept of retroactive immunity in the Intelligence bill. But I cannot ignore the fact that the Intelligence bill was reported favorably by a vote of 13-2, with most Democrats on the committee supporting that approach. I explored the possibility of putting before the Senate a bill that included elements of both two committee bills. Earlier this week, I used Senate Rule 14 to place two bills on the calendar.

The first – S. 2440 – consists of Titles I and III of the Intelligence bill, but did not include Title II on retroactive immunity. The second bill – S. 2441 – consists of Title I of the Intelligence bill and Titles II and III of the Judiciary bill. But after consulting further with Chairman Rockefeller and Chairman Leahy, a consensus emerged among the three of us that the best way to proceed would be by regular order. Both Chairmen agreed with this approach.

Under regular order, and the rules of the Senate governing sequential referral, I will move to proceed to S. 2248 – the bill reported by each committee. When that motion to proceed is adopted, the work of both committees will be before the Senate. Because of the order in which they considered the bill, the Intelligence Committee version will be the base text, and the Judiciary Committee version will be automatically pending as a substitute amendment.

What this means, in effect, is that getting rid of the telecom immunity in the Intelligence Committee bill will require sixty votes, "rendering," as Glenn Greenwald explains, "such efforts virtually impossible. In doing so, Reid is brazenly ignoring the demands of 14 Senators -- including all of the Democratic presidential candidates -- to have the Judiciary Committee bill be the base bill."

That's bad enough, but the explanation Reid is giving makes me angry. "The Intelligence Committee submitted their bill first, so we will consider theirs first."--pretty transparent BS, I have to say. I'm sure there are very good reasons for Reid's failure to oppose telecom immunity, such as, say, keeping in the good graces of powerful people like the telecoms and his old chum Senator Rockefeller, but the Majority Leader has power that is meant to be exercised in just such instances as this, where it is obvious that some Senators are working against the interests of their constituency, and where those Senators are clearly wrong.

Apparently Senator Leahy has also decided not to exercise his full clout; Reid says that Leahy agreed to have his bill (the one without immunity, and with better safeguards on domestic spying) plowed under.

Not only has Reid taken this action, but he also, in defiance of Senate custom, refused to recognize the hold Senator Dodd (a member of his own party) placed on the bill. When Tom Coburn placed a hold on a civil rights bill, Reid honored it.

As a result of all this, Chris Dodd is going to have to stand up and filibuster in support of the Constitution and in defiance of his own supposed allies. What in the world is the matter with our party?

Here's Chris Dodd's page on the filibuster.

Update: I'm watching C-Span on my computer, and Ted Kennedy just gave a corker of a speech. I'll try and find a clip of it and put it up.

Update II: Kit Bond says that the President does have the "inherent authority" under Article II of the Constitution to "conduct warrantless surveillance." Let me just take a look at Article II.. okay, yeah, I don't see it anywhere. How can Bond make an argument like that with a straight face?

Update III: Here's part of the Kennedy speech. (Embed fixed. --markus)

Telecom Immunity Again

John Ashcroft has an Op-Ed in the NY Times today in which he says the following:

The Senate bill would confer immunity in only two limited circumstances: if the carrier did not do what the plaintiffs claim; or if the carrier did do what the plaintiffs claim but based on explicit assurances from the highest levels of the government that the activities in question were authorized by the president and determined to be lawful.

Longstanding principles of law hold that an American corporation is entitled to rely on assurances of legality from officials responsible for government activities. The public officials in question might be right or wrong about the advisability or legality of what they are doing, but it is their responsibility, not the company’s, to deal with the consequences if they are wrong.

To deny immunity under these circumstances would be extraordinarily unfair to any cooperating carriers. By what principle of justice should anyone face potentially ruinous liability for cooperating with intelligence activities that are authorized by the president and whose legality has been reviewed and approved by our most senior legal officials?

I have a simple question for Ashcroft, then: if the legal principle involved is so obvious and straightforward, why can't the question be settled by a court instead of by the Congress and the President? "By what principle of justice should any face potentially ruinous liability for cooperating with intelligence activities that are authorized by the president... ?" Ashcroft says. Well, the principle, not so much of justice, but more generally of our government that the executive is one of three co-equal branches of government, and that the law is a higher authority than the President.  In other words, if the President tells you to do something that's illegal, you have to say "No."

If the President were to say, "Shoot Dick Cheney in the face," you would have to say, "No," even if he were to tell you that it were for national security. There's an argument to be made that if the telecoms could have reasonably thought that the actions they were taking were legal, they could be excused.

I'm convinced that the telecoms knew that what they were doing was illegal but participated in the behavior anyway to keep in the good graces of the White House and its checkbook. But others probably disagree, and the proper place to hash it all out is in the independent judicial system. This is all so elementary that I don't believe it has to be said over and over.

Thank goodness for Chris Dodd, who pressured a lot of Democrats into taking a stand against this transparently corrupt attempt to buy a free pass through political donations.