Just absolutely, totally disgusting. Not to mention humiliating.

Unreal.

I just don't get it. They will still be ruthlessly attacked by the right for the delay and now by the left for caving in yet again.

My hope is that Mrs. Clinton will become the VP in the new administration and immediately assume all of the powers that Dick Cheney formulated for his office and this will have only one effect in my mind. The Republicans will immediately, at all costs, rescind all of her newly gained powers out of total fear and put the genie back in the bottle where it belongs.

..yet again generating a tidal wave of headlines trumpeting how they bowed, surrendered, caved in, and lost to the President.

I won't be waiting for that tsunami, at least not painted that way, from anywhere outside the (as you pointed out, yesterday) "extreme, far left" blogosphere.

Nope, I'm betting the lackey press will color this lots more as a Bush victory, a House wisening up to the actual real threat of the Terrorists that would have been posed by granting retroactive immunity to the Telecoms.

Thanks for my cup of morning disgust; you never disappoint.

Flew in from miami beach beach

Didn’t get to bed last night

On the way the paper bag was on my knee

Man I had a dreadful flight

I’m back in the u.s.s.r.

You don’t know how lucky you are boy

Back in the u.s.s.r.

Been away so long I hardly knew the place

Gee it’s good to be back home

Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case

Honey disconnect the phone

I’m back in the u.s.s.r.

You don’t know how lucky you are boy

Back in the u.s., back in the u.s., back in the u.s.s.r.

Oooh show me round your smokey mountains way down south

Take me to your daddy’s farm

Let me hear your balalaika’s ringing out

Come and keep your comrade warm

I’m back in the u.s.s.r.

You don’t know how lucky you are boys

Back in the u.s.s.r.

DA,

bah.

Glenn: "This is, of course, everything except surprising. No rational person who has watched Congressional Democrats since they took over Congress could possibly have expected them to do anything but what they always do: namely, whatever they're told to do by the White House. The last thing they were ever going to do was stand their ground over Americans' basic liberties and the rule of law, concepts about which they couldn't possibly care less."

Another great post, thanks.

Ever since I cast my first vote for Hubert H. Humphrey, the party has baffled me often. The nation cries out for a party that will preserve our freedoms (if we have any left) and the Democratic Party was supposed to be the political party of the "common man" or as Dad used to say, "the party of the little guy". Why on earth do the Democrats not want to tap that rich vein of votes that would come from protecting our constitution and our rights?

Does the central government have pictures to blackmail them with? If not, what can it be?

When the House Dems passed on a couple of recent political opportunities to go after Bush/Cheney on national security - i.e, the nonpayment of telecom phone bills and the admission of serious security flaws in the White House email system; it seemed likely then the Dems were not really into it. The Democrats and our country ultimately will regret this sham(e).

He's my Congresscritter, so I should give him a call later today -- one way or another.

I had some hope, at one point about two weeks ago, that the Democrats would pass a bill that did not include immunity. Sure, it might get vetoed, and lacking the 2/3 required, it would die, but at least it could be spun that the administration was "Making America less safe" by blocking its passage.

Glenn seems to think the Democrats have an agenda of failure. That seems too sinister to me. I think they have an policy agenda the same way Bush has a plan for Iraq - That is to say, there is no plan.

The left is unfocused and uncoordinated. There is no Gingrich, no K street, no Norquist to bind them together. I'm not sure this is a bad thing...The spectacle of so many polititians walking in lockstep has come to seem, to me, ominous and blind. In the end, the right cannot be all things to all people, as it turns out.

Is Rush Holt caving too?

He's my Congresscritter, so I should give him a call later today -- one way or another.

No. There are a few genuinely good, truly committed members of Congress, and he's definitely one of them. Ordinarily, when the House and Senate vote on two different bills, they reconcile it in Conference. Here, Pelosi is going to allow a new vote on the FISA bill knowing that enough Blue Dogs will vote for the Senate bill to ensure passage, or they'll just agree to 99% of the Senate FISA bill in conference.

It's the leadership, with the support of the Blue Dogs, doing this.

But what is somewhat baffling in all of this is just how politically stupid and self-destructive their behavior is.

Sounds like "Potomac Fever"; sort of a psychotic break wherein the sufferer starts to think the world begins and ends inside US 395, and consequently re-arranges their thinking and actions to please the Villagers there to the exclusion of all others.

Glenn, has the House Leadership actually come out and said its going to push this atrocity forward, or has it just been trial balloons so far?

we again are left with the question of just who wrote that wonderful, hard-hitting letter to President Bush under his name just a few weeks ago. Has anyone made any progress in discovering the author?

A few excerpts to remind us:

Because I care so deeply about protecting our country, I take strong offense to your suggestion in recent days that the country will be vulnerable to terrorist attack unless Congress immediately enacts legislation giving you broader powers to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans’ communications and provides legal immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the Administration’s warrantless surveillance program.

/snip/

If our nation is left vulnerable in the coming months, it will not be because we don’t have enough domestic spying powers. It will be because your Administration has not done enough to defeat terrorist organizations – including al Qaeda -- that have gained strength since 9/11. We do not have nearly enough linguists to translate the reams of information we currently collect. We do not have enough intelligence officers who can penetrate the hardest targets, such as al Qaeda. We have surged so many intelligence resources into Iraq that we have taken our eye off the ball in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As a result, you have allowed al Qaeda to reconstitute itself on your watch.

You have also suggested that Congress must grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies. As someone who has been briefed on our most sensitive intelligence programs, I can see no argument why the future security of our country depends on whether past actions of telecommunications companies are immunized.

/snip/

I, for one, do not intend to back down – not to the terrorists and not to anyone, including a President, who wants Americans to cower in fear.

We are a strong nation. We cannot allow ourselves to be scared into suspending the Constitution. If we do that, we might as well call the terrorists and tell them that they have won.

Link: http://wwwc.house.gov/reyes/news_detail.asp?id=1370

Mr. bin Laden, please hold for your concession call from Mr. Reyes on line 1.