It's true that the democratic leadership--speaker and majority leaders--have earned a rich load of blame for the votes.

But don't forget individual senators, including our civil-libertarian "heroes" such as Dodd, Byrd, and Feingold. Let me pull posterboy Feingold down from his ivory pedestal for just a moment.

The longest filibuster by a single senator was Strom Thurmond, who completely shut down the senate for 24 hours and 18 minutes.

What did he feel so strongly about? It had to do with this:

I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra [or perhaps "nigger" [2]] race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.

It would appear that Thurmond's heartfelt conviction to keep the nigger down far outstripped posterboy Feingold's heartfelt conviction to protect and defend our Constitution. The FISA vote was a perfect chance, and the very end of a session, for a one-senator filibuster. It would have electrified the left, and support would have flooded in "like a mighty stream", as the greatest of men once said. But Feingold sat. Or perhaps he was standing, motionless, on that ivory pedestal.

And, while Dodd apparently keeps a copy of a constitution close to his ass at all times, and his head appears to be positioned where he could examine it closely without his reading glasses, he too sat on both his ass and his precious constitution.

Here was a great opportunity, met by what Byrd called on another disastrous occasion "a strange silence in this chamber".

Now that was funny. And surveillance here at Salon could be an excellent development--

Datamining and linking software will clearly detect a concentric linking pattern in the content of these posts, referring to a plan, a strategy, or some sort of document termed a "constitution". Analysis of that "plan, strategy or document" would reveal much about the inner workings of this discussion being held on Salon, and many similar sites on the intertubes. By becoming familiar with that document, our intelligence services might gain some very important information, vitally important to our national security.

We were in a worse fix, arguably, with the Alien and Sedition Acts. We got through that, and we can get through this. Jefferson's letter during that crisis is often quoted, and still true:

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake." --Jefferson's letter to John Tate of Carolina 1798

Your post crystalizes the problem with the Democratic Party very well. But I do agree with you regarding Eisenhower.

None of the Democratic presidential candidates advocate a neocon foreign policy.

If you mean whole-cloth, that's true. But the fundamental neo-con principle of military force to shape geo-politics is clearly, explicitly there in at least two of three top tier democratic candidates:

Military action against Iran: "On the Table"

Military action against Pakistan: "On the Table"

Your faith in Party is naive, in my opinion.

Within a week or so, Anonymous Liberal, Balkinization, FDL, Greenwald will have had a chance to go through this amendment and its consequences. There are some excellent commentors as well, who are attorneys and such. During that time, your members of congress will have settled back in at home and will be visible in your state and district.

This means you can get at them. For those who suffer under bluedogs, you can fry them. Show them some heat. For those who have progressives, you can ask them to fix the problem (like another amendment). Letters to the editor of your paper. For those with republicans, you can try to...hmmm. Not sure what to say there...

GG,

Yesterday listened to an interesting CSPAN talk and Q/A with the editor of the washington bureau NYT. Last name of Buquet or something close to that.

This is the same man who was newsroom editor at LA times during the great Trubune massacre at that paper (great _Frontline_ show on this), he drew the line on firings after a certain point, so Trib. fired him, then continued on with the bloodbath.

He's quite upbeat on the future of newspapers, lots of ideas about what print news needs to do in order to stay (or become) healthy. He does see a die-off coming, as do so many.

But he is a young, forward-looking and admirable guy and seems to me you two might have a lot to talk about in terms of what the future of political/news media might look like.

fwiw

The democratic bill is linked at my name below. I have a hard time accepting Feinstein at her word. I also don't think Dodd is being honest in the interview either, but that's aside.

Feinstein voted for the bill she didn't understand through the belief that surveillance must go forward uninterupted, regardless of the constitutional cost. If I remember correctly, she voted yes on both bills, as did a number of others. A bill had to be passed, in their view. 4th amendment be damned.

link at name

Interesting.

re: "Rightist Blogistan"

I'll bet that's some sort of Caliphate.