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

And click on the links?

Glenn... I'm not making this point in service of some broader aim. I'm not pointing any of this out in order to try to persuade anyone that there are no meaningful differences between the parties or that it's irrelevant who wins in 2008 (here, for instance, are the partisan vote breakdowns on the Military Commissions Act and bill to legalize warrantless eavesdropping). But it is simply undeniable that the Democratic leadership has continuously enabled and, more often, supported the defining Bush policies.

Yet we get prognostications like this:

Republicans will be the party against torture

Glenn, I know it's not you. It's not your fault. I never thought it was. It's just human nature.

The Democratic Party's motto could well be "What part of lesser of two evils don't you understand?"

But the fact is, less evil is less evil. Without the Repubs we've had these past many years, torture and getting rid of habeas corpus, etc., etc. don't become part of the American equation.

Yes, there is a disappointingly small difference between the parties these days, but the difference still exists and it still matters.

In many votes, the vast majority of Dems vote for the right thing, but too many Blue Dogs / Bush Dogs pee in the pool. And, as this piece and the linked ones point out, Dem leadership has been deeply derelict in its duty.

So, what to do?

Go to actblue.com and learn about and support as best you can primary challengers -- Democrats who act like Democrats. The alternative is to abstain or vote for vanity candidates next November, which is a vote for Bush's Third Term and a return to the Rubber Stamp Repub Congress. As Poppy Bush used to say, na' ga' do it.

Uh, the sources for this article seem to be Goss, Hayden, and "a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange." Unless we find out more, we have to presume that these are all people who need to drag whoever they can into the mess to cover their own asses.

But it was printed in the Sunday Washington Post, so it must be true.

This is remarkable, although not surprising, vindication for Glenn's position on the Democratic leadership role in the illegal and, frankly, evil behavior of this administration.

Also, as EmptyWheel says here, that complicity now extends to all of us. These are the people we elected--and these are the people we still have not held accountable.

Uh, the sources for this article seem to be Goss, Hayden, and "a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange." Unless we find out more, we have to presume that these are all people who need to drag whoever they can into the mess to cover their own asses.

Wrong. You forgot this:

Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source familiar with Pelosi's position on the matter said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation. The source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in the planning stage -- they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers but not yet put in practice -- and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.

And they asked Pelosi, Harman and Rockefeller is the story was true, and they all refused to deny it. Does that tell you anything?

What a hero against torture McCain is!

He grandstanded about it for three days, taking the reins on the issue. Then he promptly signed onto the Military Commissions Act which gave Bush infinite power to torture, to decide what constitutes torture, and to suspend the centuries-old fundamental law of habeas corpus.

All hail the moderate maverick McCain!

it's the Bush administration that conceived of the policies, implemented them and presided over their corrupt application. But it's Congressional Democrats at the leadership level who were the key allies and enablers, never getting their hands dirty with implementation -- and thus feigning theatrical, impotent outrage once each abuse was publicly exposed -- but nonetheless working feverishly the entire time to enable all of it every step of the way.

Democratic politicians have this quaint notion that what is past is past. This is a view shared by Republicans and most of the media. What they have yet to learn is that while the past is past, it is also on the internet.

What the Democrats expected us to forget on November 8, 2006 was that they had been the party in turn of silence, facilitation, and even cheerleading of the Bush Administration and its policies. Iraq, torture, tax cuts for the rich, Katrina, Walter Reed, corruption, cronyism, judgeships, US Attorneys, I keep a whole list of what went on and it has become very long. Yet during all that time, the Democrats both in their leadership and in their rank and file never once acted as a true opposition. As the Republicans have so ably shown, you only need 41 votes in the Senate to stop all legislation cold. This would not have prevented the most egregious of Bush's extra-legal and extra-Constitutional excesses but it would have put him, Dick Cheney, his Administration, and Republicans in the House and Senate on notice that there would be a day of reckoning. Instead Democrats sent the opposite message.

By voting for, being complicit in, signing off on, so much of the Bush agenda, many Democrats including the whole of the leadership now find it easier to be angry with us for remembering than they are at the Bush Administration for doing what it did, or themselves for letting these last seven years happen.

Missing Link

Re the comment right after mine, yes of course they are dragging the Democrats who approved of this into it. Of course, they are going to use the fact that they went through the oversight process before proceeding. They're perfectly justified in doing so.

And, re: your sourcing remarks, read the article. Pelosi's office does not deny that she was briefed, and did not object.