I Had My Fingers Crossed
Glenn Greenwald lays out, in terms even the mainstream media should be able to understand, what the Department of Justice is telling Congress it can go do:
… the DoJ made clear to Congress that even if Congress passes some sort of newly amended FISA of the type which Sen. DeWine introduced, and even if the President “agrees” to it and signs it into law, the President still has the power to violate that law if he wants to. Put another way, the Administration is telling the Congress — again — that they can go and pass all the laws they want which purport to liberalize or restrict the President’s powers, and it does not matter, because the President has and intends to preserve the power to do whatever he wants regardless of what those laws provide.
It’s extraordinary what the Republican representatives have swallowed over the last six years. Maybe there is a whiff of rebellion in the air, but in general, Congress is in too deep with this administration to really start complaining about things now. This is going to take a massive public outcry to really shake up the network of mutual self-interest. It seems obvious that, despite the ongoing investigations (L&O Gone Wild), Murtha (the Democrat so wrong he was right), Iraq’s scandal-palooza, FISA (or lack thereof), Feingold (and his power bloc of three), nothing external is going to have much effect.
Internally, there has been some ‘06 and pre-’08 sniping, but there is still no real sign that the coalition has started to fall apart. Which is a little scary, when you think about it. How long can this go on? What would it take to see a real Republican uprising against the Bush machine?
Clearly, it’s going to take a genuine political hurricane to to break up this Faustian bargain, with individual representatives doing the constituent calculus that tells them it’s better to go it alone. Maybe it’s the calm before the storm. Hints of that are emerging, but there’s still just too much money on the table. It’s too soon to throw Bush overboard. Of course, that begs the question, “When will it be too late?”
