Backlash

Here's a funny thing. With all the speeches, and tough talk, and castigation of Democrats, you'd think that the Bush Administration was making headway on their agenda this week. But actually, the Rubber Stamp Republican Congress is offering resistance on a variety of levels.

First, Arlen Specter's amnesty for illegal wiretapping bill, written with the full cooperation of the White House, died in committee.

President Bush's support proved insufficient to push a bill authorizing his warrantless wiretapping program through the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.

Sen. Arlen Specter, the committee's chairman, said the bill stalled because of election-year obstructionism.

''We have seen the incipient stage of filibuster by amendment,'' the Pennsylvania Republican testily declared as he called off a vote to move his bill to the Senate floor. ''Filibuster by speech, filibuster by amendment. Obstructionism.''

That's kind of funny that he calls it "election-year obsrtuctionism," since the chief antagonist in this debate is not up for re-election.

The target of his ire was Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., who spoke against the bill for about a quarter of the panel's two-hour meeting and offered four amendments. Feingold, a possible presidential candidate, said Specter's bill would give the White House too much power to eavesdrop without a warrant in some circumstances.

''The president has basically said: I'll agree to let a court decide if I'm breaking the law if you pass a law first that says I'm not breaking the law,'' Feingold said. ''That won't help re-establish a healthy respect for separation of powers. It will only make matters worse.''

Also, three Republicans joined Feingold in slowing down this legislation. Larry Craig of Idaho, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and John Sununu of New Hampshire are also NOT up for re-election. But this was election-year obstructionism. No, it was Constitution and federal statute-obstructionism, obstructing the President from engaging in any illegal activity he wants and then legalizing it ex post facto.

Next, the military commissions proposal sent to the Congress by the White House was met with immediate resistance by fellow Republicans and the Pentagon's own lawyers:

The Pentagon’s top uniformed lawyers took issue Thursday with a key part of a White House plan to prosecute terrorism detainees, telling Congress that limiting the suspects’ access to evidence could violate treaty obligations.

Their testimony to a House committee marked the latest time that military lawyers have publicly challenged Bush administration proposals to keep some evidence — such as classified information — from accused terrorists. In the past, some military officials have expressed concerns that if the U.S. adopts such standards, captured American troops might be treated the same way [...]

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he would like to take up the bill on the Senate floor as soon as possible, leaving open the door for a vote on the measure before lawmakers break at the end of the month for election campaigning.

But some GOP moderates are challenging the proposal. They include three senators with hefty credentials: Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam; Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a former military lawyer who still serves in the Air Force Reserves as a reserve judge; and Sen. John Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

This bill, in addition to paving the way for the United States to become the first country on Earth to be able to try a suspect for a capital crime without letting him see or respond to the evidence, would allow the CIA to go on torturing prisoners as well:

New U.S. policies on the treatment and interrogation of terrorism suspects outlined this week by the Bush administration mean that the military no longer will resort to harsh or extreme methods to obtain information — but that the CIA could.

The new administration approach, first presented by President Bush in a speech Wednesday and detailed later by administration and military officials, followed an internal administration debate over the question of how best to extract intelligence from the most notorious suspects apprehended in the war on terrorism.

But by assigning the CIA to use tough, undefined methods on some detainees, the policy outlined by Bush may raise new questions about U.S. procedures and invite more criticism from human rights advocates and allies.

This is exactly what has reduced our global standing, inflamed the entire world, and ceded the moral high ground in the first place. The Bush Administration is looking to codify it into law. The Pentagon admitted that torture does not reveal good intelligence. That hasn't stopped this crew. And they cite examples of "tough tactics" working that are obvious and complete lies:

As promised, some further analysis of Bush's contention that torture is awesome because torturing Abu Zubaydah led him to "identif[y] one of KSM's accomplices in the 9/11 attacks -- a terrorist named Ramzi bin al Shibh." Spencer Ackerman writes:

"A Nexis search for "Ramzi Binalshibh" between September 11, 2001 and March 1, 2002--the U.S. captured Abu Zubaydah in March 2002--turns up 26 hits for The Washington Post alone. Everyone involved in counterterrorism knew who bin Al Shibh was. Now-retired FBI Al Qaeda hunter Dennis Lormel told Congress who Ramzi bin Al Shibh was in February 2002. Abu Zubaydah getting waterboarded and spouting bin Al Shibh's name did not tell us anything we did not already know."

That's a month before Zubaydah's capture, for the record. And, presumably, the FBI knew something about this matter before revealing it in public statements to Congress. Bush is, once again, just making stuff up.

They can't even find one instance of good intelligence coming from torturous interrogation without lying about it. And they can't get any of their power-aggrandizing, lawbreaking agenda through Congress. Maybe that's just "election-year obstructionism", or maybe that's because public servants have seen the great danger of giving power over to this White House.