Its good if we do it, but bad if they do it. That seems to sum up the Democratic approach to this today.

Oh, and if Senator Graham happens to read this - I heard you on NPR today calling me a "fringe element" because I happen to believe that FOIA should be protected and your amendment is a bad idea (at best). I'll wearthat badge proudly, right along side my VP Disk Cheney You're a Traitor medal.

to see a Democratic Congresswoman standing up for a core piece of progressive legislation (and the principles behind it).

I would like to see our President do the same.

In the War on Transparency and the War on Accountability, no wonder Graham and Lieberman want to support the troops. They're the troops.

There's an interesting book by Sheldon Wolin called: "Democracy Inc."

He writes, "Inverted totalitarianism has learned how to exploit what appers to be formidable policitcal and legal constraints, using them in ways that defeat their original purpose but without dismantling....them."

I think this is exactly how Congress and the President proceed. They were set up as separate branches so that "ambition could check ambition". While we retain the form of three separate and equal branches of govt. we do not retain that reality. The truth is that most of Congress simply colludes with the executive branch. The courts have been the one check on this collusion and I believe that check will fall soon enough. We will retain all the forms of a democracy without being one.

Thank goodness there are a few people in every branch that stand against the gutting of democracy. I know I have said this before, but citizens need to wake up and understand what is going on, right now. We have to support those in govt. who truly seek a fair and Constitutional system. Further, we need to stop being co-opted by Obama and Democrats who say they represent the people and the Constitution when in reality, they do no such thing.

I wanted to stand and cheer while listening to the interview. Her clear stand for a principle that has substance, rather than political expediency, was so refreshing. Because of how far things have deteriorated, restoring transparency to government will be a long, slow process, but I'm very happy that it has at least one champion who understands its value.

Somewhat related, I just posted an Oxdown Diary on the Graham-Lieberman Tantrum for Torture.

For years under Bush, most Democrats in Congress were petrified about voting against war funding bills -- even when they contained unrelated amendments they found offensive -- because they were so scared that they would be accused of "failing to support the troops."

Actually, they usually whined about not being in the majority and that we should just wait till they're in control and things would be oh, so different. Now, it appears we have to wait for...what?

Of course, this kind of thing is ironic only if you regard them as an "opposition" party without the quotation marks.

I was once a mindless liberal Salonista, but now I'm mindful of safety and security issues because I'm learning from "Captain" Ed.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/10/palau-takes-the-uighurs-and-the-cash/

Palau has accepted the Obama administration’s offer of $200 million to bring 17 trained al-Qaeda terrorists to their island nation.

[...]

Hopefully it will work out all right for Palau and its tourists, but if I were making decisions on expensive South Pacific vacations, I’d start looking elsewhere.

- - Ed Morrissey

__________

Quite right.

Safety first.

I live about ten miles from the federal prison and the federal courthouse in Manhattan, so, until they ship former Gitmo detainee Ahmed Ghailani somewhere else, I'm staying down in the fallout shelter.

It's annoying how the Wi-Fi signal is weak and erratic down here, but that's more than balanced out by how I'm avoiding the annoyance of applying sun screen this summer.

It's restful and serene down here, and the 55 year old saltines and peanut butter are surprisingly tasty.

At all costs and at any extreme these people will protect themselves against any heinous crimes they have been involved in such as war crimes, and the weekly killing of innocent civilians by drone killing machines which they funded by there votes.

These politicians called neoconservatives are the most wicked people ever seen during the American experiment of governance and they need to put away into prisons for the rest of their lives.

If -everything- the country stands for wasn't plowed under.

Walt

check this story out.

This gentleman was posting your column on "The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009" with photo's of torture and the WH scrubbed his posts and his Flickr account was terminated:

http://newsworldwide.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/obama-supports-bill-that-removes-photos-of-torture-for-cover-up/

Full story here:

http://gawker.com/5285064/yahoo-nukes-mans-photos-over-obama-comments

This post touches a HUGE point for Dem vs Rep politics: commitment. I think a full HALF of Republican voters have chosen that party because they -- at least in their rhetoric -- get deeply offended when anyone even suggests touching their sacred issues.

In other words, they show they care by getting upset and throwing tantrums. Is it juvenile? Sure, but it gets the point across better than any argument ever could. Many ordinary folk in America feel that if you don't "get upset" then you simply don't care, at least not in a personal "real" way.

Seriously?

With a few exceptions, as best I can tell, nothing, as long as they can keep their seats in Congress. They do come cheap, don't they?

I hereby demand that my district be gerrymandered so that I can be represented by Louise Slaughter in place of the loathsome Likudnik Nita Lowey.

Instead of playing games with amendments, this Lindsay Lieberman bill, just like Bush's judicial nominees, deserves an up-or-down vote by the full Senate as a stand alone item.

On the other hand...

This is capital F fun...

WaPo: Supplemental Bill in Chaos (Your Calls are Working)
By: Jane Hamsher Wednesday June 10, 2009 7:19 am

...Hats off to Harry Reid. If he hadn't punted Graham-Lieberman to the House in a stealth move that nobody understood until the last minute, there probably wouldn't have been enough opposition to keep the bill from passing initially. But outrage over the photos gave anti-war activists time to organize and start calling their members of Congress, while CEPR on the left and Red State on the right both began lobbying against the IMF bailout...

http://firedoglake.com/2009/06/10/wapo-supplemental-bill-in-chaos-your-calls-are-working/