I got a good laugh last night when I read this Time piece explaining the reasoning behind Nancy Pelosi's support for the FISA "compromise." It's as if there's a boilerplate form for the writing of such articles–like a mad libs. The story is already written–just plug in the word or phrase that fits for today's story. Since Time always tells the company story, it has to go with the idea of "compromise." And compromise means finding a middle ground between the two extremes of left and right. So first sentence:
A compromise deal to extend the federal government's domestic spying powers, passed by the House on Friday and expected to sail through the Senate next week, has drawn attacks from both sides of the political spectrum. The right is unhappy at concessions made to protect civil liberties; the left is furious that the Democrats allowed the domestic spying powers to be extended in any form.
That's why only one Republican–Johnson from Illinois–voted against it. The Republicans were horrified at how much they were giving away to those awful leftists who want to tie the president up with rolls of red tape. I'm not even going to contest this one–that the GOP looks at this as a win for the president is well documented.
The article goes on to praise the stalwart "liberal" Pelosi for her standing up against the wrath of the leftist base and to point out how politically shrewd she is:
What motivated Pelosi and the Democrats to incur the wrath of their liberal base and allow one of the Administration's most controversial anti-terror policies to be extended? A mix of politics, pragmatism and some significant concessions.
First of all, Pelosi wanted the issue off the table for the political campaign this fall. Despite anti-GOP sentiment in the country and record low popularity for President George W. Bush, Democrats still trail on national security and that could hurt them in Congress. Stonewalling the Administration and letting the surveillance powers expire could have cost the Democrats swing seats they won in 2006 as well as new ones they have a chance to steal from Republicans this November. "For any Republican-leaning district this would have been a huge issue," says a top Pelosi aide, who estimates that as many as 10 competitive races could have been affected by it.
Pelosi realized that conservative freshman Democrats like Nancy Boyda of Kansas and centrist Southern representatives were willing to squeeze the Administration for a compromise as long as she got one in the end. That made it possible for her to let the Protect America Act — which passed last August and granted full approval to the Adminstration's expansive surveillance powers — expire in February, and set up her negotiating position through the spring.
This is Beltway system groupthink. It's how the world lives when your daily reality is a hall of mirrors. What good is a Democratic congress if they can't stop a travesty like this. It's 100% political calculation whose only concern is playing the game to get more power. That's the only thing that enters into the mind of someone defeated by the Beltway system.
If you want a more thorough critique of this Time piece of propaganda see Greenwald this morning on this.
UPDATE: The basic question goes unanswered, though: Why is Pelosi, Hoyer, Rockefeller, and Reid so strong on supporting this bill. I don't buy the contested congressional seats reason quoted in the Time article is robust enough to be a primary mover for the Dem leaders. I think that Jonathan Turley's hypothesis, as stated on Olbermann (youtube found at update 2 to this post) is the Dem leadership is as implicated in the illegal wiretapping as Bush and his people are. I don't know if that's true, but it's certainly plausible and would go a long way to explain what otherwise seems an unnecessary cave in to a president who has no real power or credibility anymore. If it is true, we'll probably never find out if this bill is approved, which is the point of the bill–to make sure nobody ever finds out. No lawsuits, no discovery.
If true, and Obama knows about it, does it make his support more understandable? I don't think so. Rather it makes him a collaborator in their cover-up. What if in exchange for his support he has demanded that if he is elected they then must step down from their leadership positions? I don't know; Im just thinking out loud. I'm still looking for a plausible reason to explain Obama's passivity on this. He knows what the bill means. Just to go along because it would be embarrassing for Dem leaders to be outed is not even close to being a good reason to support this bill. There better be something else going on behind closed doors that justifies this.
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