According to Jack Balkin, Bush still isn’t satisfied. He wants Congress to come back in September and add to the “We trust Alberto Gonzalez completely” FISA reform bill an additional new fix:

The “if the President does it, it’s not illegal” clause giving the administration legal immunity for previously breaking the law.

I’m sure the Democrats will be well prepared to fight this by rolling over, playing dead, and asking Bush if there’s anything else he needs to fight the terrorists.

Oversight is a bitch.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/08/bush-to-democratic-congress-your.html

The only way to make Democratic politicians look good is to compare them to Republican politicians. Seen on their own, they are short-sighted, cowardly, and stupid.

We are soooooo screwed.

If you want a summary of what new bill does go over to the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/washington/06nsa.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Glenn is right to criticize the Dem's on this, they should know better. I've given hope on expecting any Repubs to stand up for my rights (other than the 2nd amendment, the ONLY part of the Constitution they pay more than lip service to defend), but I had held out some hope for checks and balances with the elections of 2006.

I was wrong.

Drop this masochistic, self-flagellating meme about a minority of 'capitulating' Democrats. Each & every Republican legislator who just voted to expand warrantless wiretapping & electronic surveillance, should be roundly thanked & congratulated for substantially empowering the inexorably imminent administration of President Hillary Clinton.

President GW Bush has only 18 months left to abuse these powers. The soon-to-be-elected President HR Clinton has 96! If that prospect fills every conservative heart with a scintilla of the dread such legislation inspires in most progressives, then its' enactment will be a worthily delicious irony. Republicans are soon going to learn that their fetish for an unconstitutional unitary executive cuts both ways. Let them backslap & highfive eachother in the myopic triumphalism that proclaims their idiot hubris. Every unchecked power they've conferred on their Chimperor is soon to be gratefully inherited & wielded by his & their dreaded nemesis.

I don't understand this. All I've seen in the last few days is attack after attack on the Democrats for passing this legislation. From you, I expect a more serious analysis of what this legislation is about.

He has repeatedly said he doesn't have time yet for the "analysis" you are demanding -- and who are you to demand it, anyway? Besides, he's now linked to many, many people who make it clear that this legislation is utterly as pernicious as initial claims indicated. I was very reluctant to beleive that at first, but it's a fact.

Never have I known Glenn to carry water for anyone because of whatever party or ideological label they carry. If he were to suddenly carry on like that vis-a-vis Democrats, now that would be shocking. In my view not all of the Democrats who voted for this awful thing did so because George Bush "strong-armed" them or for other craven reason. Some no doubt believe it is actually necessary. To that extent I agree with you that *some* of the hyperbole abounding is excessive.

However, Glenn's argument that they could have sent Bush a bill fixing the one true gap in FISA and demanding that he sign it-- put the onus on him -- does seem to me the sort of political hardball you want civil libertarians playing with George. (Democratic civil libertarians or otherwise.) Doesn't that seem like a pretty elegant strategy to you, one that the Democrats failed to adopt?

Of course if it weren't for the recess, this bill would never have seen light of day. The best way to get bad legislation passed is to time it so it can't be properly debated. Most of the worst travesties of the last six years have this in common. Even the Iraq war itself was hurried for no other reason than making sure that the invasion didn't happen in the summertime.

Glenn certainly right to point out that if Fred (no war too big or small) Hiatt disapproves then it must be REALLY bad.

All Democrats had to do was offer legislation to fix the only real gap in FISA and then demand that the President sign it or risk a Terrorist attack.

Everyone I hear saying such trusting things about this aspect of the program is someone who either hasn't seen it (most bloggers, of course) or some legislator who has seen it but frankly admits to not understanding enough about the technology to know why we need this "modernization" - they're just taking it for granted that we do.

Bear in mind that, though we now know they have been doing this illegal spying since 2001, the program has never generated a single piece of evidence that led to preventing any terrorism.

And there is no reason why anyone should ever have expected it to. The program lays more hay on the haystack, but is extremely unlikely ever to locate a single needle. It loads more useless data on without doing anything to screen data effectively.

Strong and tough Democrats would say, "Prove to the satisfaction of Bruce Schneier that this program is necessary. Then we'll talk."

yes, there are "details" that are significant, important ...

imho, the democratic nominee should be someone who is willing to discuss complex issues and "compromises" such as this one ...

I also think we deserve to know a thumbnail sketch of what is in those "security briefings" since they are held up too often as an "if you knew what I know" rationales.

I find myself wondering if the Dems are still obsessed with "not alienating" rather than "courting" that (quite possibly apocryphal) silent majority. Anyone without some opinion about something is most likely not paying attention anyway ... or brain dead....

I was vaguely hoping we could avoid a significant third-party run ... now I'm wondering how many third-parties we'll see.

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".