Glenn sums up Reid's (and "some Democrats'") attack on Dodd:

After all, it can't possibly be the case that Dodd actually believes in what he's doing and saying. [...] Clearly, Dodd's just doing all of this to prop up his flagging presidential campaign, just a cynical ploy for attention, not because he has any actual convictions ...

This perfectly expresses Reid et al's own attitudes toward any actual issue - they do not believe in what they are doing, they act only on cynical (and typically incorrect) calculations of poliitical expediency. So they cannot fathom - or psychologically, they cannot afford to comprehend - the possibility that anyone possesses the integrity to act out of conviction.

Of course, Reid's mental state doesn't concern me, only his actions, but it's interesting to observe nonetheless.

You know...this shit is almost enough (really) to make me swallow my gorge and actually vote for Ron Paul in 2008. IF Reid actually forces immunity through, then even if I do not vote for Paul I WILL vote actively AGAINST the Democrats. I will NOT reward this crap and will actively seek to forever sabotage them, rendering them backseaters with the defunct Republican party too. It would be nice if independent voters, the growing mass, would vote AGAINST the major parties and actually start seating 3rd party candidates (Greens, Independents, Socialists, etc) in place of Democraps and Rethuglicans. Take away their feeling of entitlement by forcing both parties to beg 3rd party members to caucus with them in order to get a majority, and in return, force the parties to give up the worst abuses of law and the Constitution.

Reid will NOT get immunity through goddamnit! NO NO NO NO! But if he does there really REALLY must be hell to pay. This isn't a small thing, this is a big deal. Reid must go and he MUST pay, along with his minions in the criminal cabal called the Democrap party.

And I was about to send Reid an e-mail thanking him for blocking Bush's recess appointments over the Christmas break. (To make up for the somewhat terse phone calls and e-mails over FISA.) Give 'em hell, Harry. Uh huh.

Congrats to Glenn (I think?) for being Antiwar.com's Liberal of the Year.

Do you really want to be remembered as the Senator who helped the Bush regime eviscerate democracy?

And I was about to send Reid an e-mail thanking him for blocking Bush's recess appointments over the Christmas break. (To make up for the somewhat terse phone calls and e-mails over FISA.)

Please, all of you, do NOT do this. Do NOT give an "attaboy" to Reid. Honestly, he does no deserve it at all. When/if he does something right it is not because he got a flash of reason and light, it is to serve his own personal agenda and that agenda, as we can clearly see, is NOT an American agenda. Or at least not an acceptable American agenda. He is NOT a good guy. Any good deed he does is by accident - a roll of the dice or an example of a stopped clock being right twice a day. There is literally nothing in Reid to applaud or stroke.

ANY positive reinforcement sent his way will be misinterpreted as an "attaboy" for EVERYTHING he does or simply taken in as beside the point. Reid must GO. His minions must GO. He is unfit to lead, he is unfit for the Senate, he is unfit to serve in ANY position of authority.

Or is Reid doing exactly what he thinks is right?

I don't think Reid is afraid or Bush, or feels he has to obey him. He's not afraid of the chattering idiots of the DC press. Reid, as part of the Establishment, honestly believes that his corporate paymasters deserve this protection.

Like most Washington politicians, he sees the corporations (and the elite who run them) as his constituency, and couldn't give a shit what the hoi polloi who "elect" him think. Why should he?

What's most funny about the apparent Reid view is not just the classic establishmentarian's suggestion that any anti-hawkish political stance (Dodd's throwdown against telecom immunity) which appears to be based on principle is really just cynical manipulation of the rubes' passions for some political or other non-principled goal.

What's really funny is that Reid & co. actually view that presumed cynical manipulation as saner than an actual dedication to anti-hawkish, Constitution-defending principles.

If Reid & co. thought Dodd was doing all this crazy oppositional stuff because of real dedication to principle, then he would appear truly frightening to them.

It might be okay to manipulate the rubes every now & then by vowing to filibuster to save Constitutional principles. Hey, we all do it, right, sayeth the courtiers and gossips of Versailles.

But heaven forfend anyone actually mean it. Now that would simply be mad.

I only bring it up because it appears that impunging our motives while failing to address our arguments is fast becoming SOP.

Hmm.. Sounds familiar.

Try debating drug policy sometimes if you want to have your motives impugned and your arguments ignored.

This version is "special" and this thread has been hijacked!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubqcT_sIBos

"I'm mad a hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!!" If anyone's read Chris Matthew's book, "Life's a Campaign" or watched John Stewart's evisceration of its premise, this maneuver by Reid and Co. is clear evidence of Village thinking: There is no such thing as law, sincerity, or principle - just the accumulation of power and the wielding of the same. With this kind of "leadership," we're screwed! Dodd for Majority Leader!

Is Reid Bowing to Bush?

Or is Reid doing exactly what he thinks is right?

I don't think Reid is afraid or Bush, or feels he has to obey him. He's not afraid of the chattering idiots of the DC press. Reid, as part of the Establishment, honestly believes that his corporate paymasters deserve this protection.

In this regard I am fully with Arthur Silbur at his "Once Upon a Time" blog. The Democrapic "leadership", at best, and much of the rank and file (particularly the recent GOP party switchers) are not being forced to go along with anything. They are not being blackmailed by the fruits of illegal domestic spying. They are not being tricked. They are FULLY supportive of everything they pass and, in this case, what they are trying ever so hard to pass. The only reason it didn't pass and, hopefully, wont pass in January/February is because there are actually some few members of the Democrap party that actually do believe in and honor their oath to the Constitution. There are a few, though being politicians, actually still have principles and a sense of ethics. Hopefully, there are enough of these latter creatures around to throw another monkey wrench into the criminal plans of Reid and his co-conspirators in the next round.

If we can get through the FISA bill without Reid legalizing illegal domestic spying, then we may actually make it to the point that we MUST reach: a Senate without Reid in it, without Feinstein, without Rockefeller (or at the very least, with these criminals hamstrung by being removed from positions where they can do real damage).