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Monday, January 28, 2008 12:00 AM

What's at stake today in the Senate's FISA filibuster vote

Are there any limits at all on the willingness of Senate Democrats to be bullied and manipulated by the White House?

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  • Monday, January 28, 2008 06:30 AM

    The enduring mystery of our time

    Historians will long wonder why the Democrat controlled congress, given that they were elected to combat Bush, and given his weakness and now-laughable transparent scare tactics, was so unwilling to challenge him. In hindsight, it will seem so obvious that they could have won that experts will be unable to fathom why it didn't happen. All sorts of conspiracy theories will rise up about Bush blackmailing Pelosi and Reid in an attempt to explain the unexplainable. Future panels will be convened just to study this one aspect of our times. Millions will be spent trying to understand the phenomenon, the abject failure of the Democrats to stop Bush when they held all the cards. I hope these future historians are able to answer the question of why it happened. I watch in astonishment as it unfolds before me. I simply cannot explain it. It goes beyond gutlessness or expediency - it is something we don't yet fully understand. Perhaps it will even get a label - like "group think," which was applied to the Kennedy group who dreamed up the Bay of Pigs disaster as a way of describing the particular dysfunction that led a whole group of people to think and act irrationally.

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