Greenwald this morning about the telecom amnesty bill that looks like it will pass soon with Democratic support:
Democrats are about to institutionalize a proposition that has been rejected since the Nuremberg Trials -- namely, that individuals (or, more accurately, lobbyist-protected corporations) are free to break the law as long as they can claim afterwards that they were told by the Leader to do so. That's the principle which the Democratic Party -- following their standard pattern of having enough of their members join a virtually unanimous GOP while the Democratic leadership enables it all -- is about to write into our laws.
The excuse Congressional Democrats are using for this behavior -- that passing a FISA/telecom bill is necessary to avoid political harm -- is as false as it is cowardly. As I noted the other day, there are all sorts of easy ways to avoid political controversy if that goal were really what was driving them, including simply extending the existing PAA orders by 6-9 months so that they don't expire in August.
But the broader and more important point is the one illustrated by the bold and principled acts being undertaken by British politicians in several parties there, the same principle illustrated by numerous acts of Russ Feingold over the past seven years: defending basic liberties, the core principles of our political system, and the rule of law is of such overriding importance that any worthwhile politician, by definition, will do so even if it entails some political cost. As British members of Parliament resign their seats and defend members of other parties in defense of their liberties, our own Democratic Party this week will -- yet again -- endorse and legalize the most extremist and illegal aspects of the Bush agenda in pursuit of the craven, illusory and increasingly irrelevant goal of protecting its own political interests.
Do you get the feeling sometimes that the calculus used by these legislators to judge yea or nay has little or nothing to do with what is best for the country and everything to do with what is best for them? Does what is good for the country ever really come into view for them? Is it that they don't care or that they are just clueless? Do they assume that if it is good for them, it is good for the country? Do they talk themselves into some rationale that they are doing no harm or that someone can fix it later? With sociopaths like Cheney or Bush I can understand their indifference to immolate so many lives on the altar of their ego and personal interests. But it would seem that they have risen to the positions that they hold because they are prodigies of callous indifference--they are the leaders of a craven pack which, regardless what it says in public about them, admires them and seeks to sits at their feet.
Greenwald:
When the history of the post 9/11-era in America is written, it will record that our country was ruled by an administration as radical as it was contemptuous of our laws and basic liberties, but was also aided and abetted every step of the way by a putative "opposition party" too craven and/or supportive even to attempt to impede any of it, let alone succeed in doing so. The very few times when certain of its members tried to take principled stances of the type Britain is now witnessing -- such as Feingold's vigorous opposition to Bush's illegal spying program, the Military Commissions Act, and excesses of the Patriot Act -- the Democratic Party leadership itself intervened to quash them and ensure they failed.
Maybe there are some discussions I'm unaware of, but except for Olbermann's special comments and his discussions with Jonathan Turley and John Dean, you'd never know from other sources in the MSM how vicious has been the attack on basic constitutional principles. If I'm wrong, tell me where.