Even putting Progressives in charge of failed, broken, diseased, rotten, and collapsing institutions is not necessarily going to save them.

But I repeat myself...

-- Ché Pasa

Actually, yes, you did repeat yourself. And you ended up in the same place that you always do. You tell us what needs to be done without actually telling us what needs to be done.

Also, how do you know that replacing DINOS with more and better Democrats won't help when you know zilch about who those replacements might be. That's like saying, 'Even though I never heard of Martin Luther King, and even though I have no idea what the guy stands for, or how he would go about implementing into concrete business what he stands for, or how courageous he might or might not be, I have no confidence or belief that this Martin Luther King fellow would or could accomplish anything'.

Fear and ignorance mixed with politics and patriotism produce lousy judgement by elected officials for whom it is safer to follow the crowd. Leadership based on independent judgment creates risk. There aren't many many members of Congress willing to take the risk of leadership.

Was George Wallace right in claiming "there isn't a dime's worth of difference" between Democrats and Republicans?

The Democratic Party "leadership" is dancing to same tune as most Republicans, played by the corporate oligarchy of wealth and political power. The corporate-controlled media consciously promotes certain policies ("free trade" treaties, for example) and "front runner" political candidates (Hillary Clinton, Rudolf Giuliani, etc.)while ignoring and belittling policies and candidates that would threaten the preeminence of corporate control of the government apparatus.

The torture being used on suspected "terrorists" now is likely to be but the forerunner of more widespread indefinite detention and torture for all "enemies of the state". As long as government power is in the hands of corporate shills and lackeys, we can expect no less.

If the Democratic Party is to regain its status as the promoter and defender of American freedom and justice, it must reject corporate-designated "front-runner" candidates and entrenched incumbents who serve the interests of the authoritarian state.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

This information was almost certainly leaked to the Post by intelligence officials who are highly irritated -- understandably so -- from watching the manipulative spectacle whereby these Democrats now prance around as outraged victims of policies to which they deliberately acquiesced, when they weren't fully supporting them.

And thanks, Glenn, for the two grafs on your "aim and intent". But you know as well as I do that some people will only see what they want to see.

As for me, I'm disgusted, but not surprised. Milgram and Zimbardo tell us this is the dark side of human nature.

Upton Sinclair told us, “It is difficult for a man to understand something when his income depends on his not understanding it.“

Meaningful election finance reform here is going to take years and be a bloody fight. I'm watching efforts in Canada where they have the same problem to a lesser degree.

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/old/features/parliament/party-finance/regulating-donations.html

Some of the more extreme elements on the left-wing of the Democratic Party will lapse into their traditional wailing about the Bush-appeasing weakness of their party leaders

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2007/12/waterboard_memories.html

Of course those of us who were beating our heads against the wall wondering how the hell all these completely immoral and (I might add) counterproductive after-the fact laws authorizing repugnant actions were getting through the Congress should have known then what we know now. Which is to say that the President has ALWAYS had partners in crime across the aisle.

One of the unfortunate downsides to the fall of the Soviets has been not that we don't have an enemy to justify our insatiable military expenditure appetite but that we don't have an example of evil to AVOID EMULATING.

The discussion of what is acceptable conduct in war has gotten so off the rails is that there's no one left to keep us honest.

Except of course for us DFH's.

I'm not making this point in service of some broader aim.

But I will. We are signatories to the U.N.Convention against Torture. As such, we are required to prosecute and provide adequate punishment for torturers and those who create a system of torture. The Congress is the court and prosecuting body for the executive branch. They didn't just have a duty to abhor what was going on, they didn't just have a duty to write a letter or two, they didn't just have a duty to expose the wrongdoing.

They had a duty to act, under Article 12 of the CATCIDT. Either that or to make these people available for extradition to The Hague.

That's not to mention what duties to act they had as a consequence of their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution from these domestic enemies.

And how can Senate Democrats pretend to be outraged at such policies when the leader they chose supports them?

Quite simply, they can’t.

As Marty Lederman put it:

“Really, isn’t it about time the Democrats select an effective Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, one who will treat this scandal with the seriousness it deserves, and who will shed much-needed light on the C.I.A. program of torture, cruel treatment and obstruction of evidence?”

It is quite clear that unless the Democrats do that, there will be no meaningful investigations into this scandal. As long as Rockefeller presides over this committee the administration has nothing to worry about – and they know that.

What isn’t clear is whether the Democrats know that. Will they recognize Rockefeller’s complicity – and thus their own – and do something about it?

Sadly, there is nothing in past actions that indicates that they will, and the result will be the leadership of the Democratic Party joining in the “cover up” and the “obstruction of justice” engaged in by this administration.

The administration wanted the Democratic leadership compromised on this issue – that’s why they showed them what they did – and it worked. They gambled that Rockefeller and the others would never dare to go public with this at the time and it turned out to be a pretty safe bet.

http://tinyurl.com/2l9zw3