Letters to the Editor

Bob Barr endorses Accountability Now/Strange Bedfellows coalition The widespread agreement between important factions of citizens on the Left and Right illustrates important facts about how our political establishment operates Glenn Greenwald [2008-07-18]

• DLC Chief Harold Ford at Netroots

  This perfectly illustrates Democratic leadership's position regarding accountability:

  Later Ford was quizzed on why he would support granting telecommunication companies immunity for their participation in the FISA program. His response - that it wasn't the companies who should be held to a fault but rather the public officials who ordered their participation - was challenged by several different questioners, who demanded "accountability" for privacy violations.

  "I think that accountability was brought in 2006 when [the GOP] lost in the House and the Senate," Ford responded said. "And we have only eight more months of George W. Bush..."

  "When is he going to prison!" screamed an audience member to a few claps.

  I think this is it, in crystalized form. "Accountability" equals loss of majority for ones party. Majority--power--is all that matters. "Law" comes in a distant second, if it is considered at all.

  Ford proudly terms himself a "centrist" in the Democratic Party, but this position is radically un-democratic, and when viewed logically, is every bit as bad as the logic of Rove, Yoo, or Addington. It is anathema to a truly functioning democratic government.

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/18/harold-ford-heckled-over_n_113663.html

  -- casual_observer
  [Read casual_observer's other letters]
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