If A President Stamps His Feet In The Rose Garden, And Nobody Is There To Hear It...

It's funny that the President responds to nobody listening to his temper tantrum by... throwing another temper tantrum.

The American citizens must understand -- clearly understand that there still is a threat on the homeland, there's still an enemy which would like to do us harm, and that we've got to give our professionals the tools they need to be able to figure out what the enemy is up to so that we can stop it....

People say, oh, it doesn't matter if this law hasn't been renewed -- it does matter. It matters for a variety of reasons. It matters because the intelligence officials won't have tools necessary to get as much information as we possibly can to protect you. And it matters because these telephone companies that work collaboratively with us to protect the American people are afraid they're going to get sued.

And the American people have got to understand these lawsuits make it harder for us to convince people to help protect you. And so by blocking this good piece of legislation, our professionals tell me that they don't have all the tools they need to do their job.

This would probably work better if it wasn't the President saying it and, I don't know, someone that the public even remotely trusts. And no, faceless Bush crony Mike McConnell doesn't qualify, especially when he admits that protecting the American public is not his job, protecting corporations is.

The Protect America Act, passed by Congress last August, temporarily closed the gaps in our intelligence collection, but there was a glaring omission: liability protection for those private-sector firms that helped defend the nation after the Sept. 11 attacks. This month, I testified before Congress, along with the other senior leaders of the intelligence community, on the continuing threats to the United States from terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets. We stated that long-term legislation that modernized FISA and provided retroactive liability protection was vital to our operations. The director of the FBI told the Senate that "in protecting the homeland it's absolutely essential" to have the support of private parties.

Some have claimed that expiration of the Protect America Act would not significantly affect our operations. Such claims are not supported by the facts. We are already losing capability due to the failure to address liability protection.

He really puts it up front, doesn't he? The only "gap" in intelligence gathering is making sure nobody gets sued for doing it because it's against the law. They honestly can't come up with a reason why going to a court to get a warrant, even AFTER the surveillance, is such a burden, so they misrepresent the facts. And that's because it's not their major interest. Their interest is getting the phone companies off the hook.

A good summary of the pathetic lying and fearmongering from the right-wing is here, but it's important to understand that for the Bush Administration this is all about the phone companies, and nothing else. Because, a court case with the phone companies involved would reveal the depths of the lawbreaking undertaken by the Administration itself. This is about self-preservation.

And so we come to the Democrats, who simply put this fearmongering aside yesterday and chose to ignore it. And this has left the White House flabbergasted. They literally don't know what to do about it.

The episode was a rare uprising by Democrats against the White House on a terrorism issue, and it inspired caterwauling on both sides about the dire ramifications of the standoff.

Several Democrats said yesterday that many in their party wish to take a more measured approach to terrorism issues, and they refused to be stampeded by Bush. "We have seen what happens when the president uses fearmongering to stampede Congress into making bad decisions," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). "That's why we went to war in Iraq."

White House officials and their allies were angry that the Democrats did not "blink," as one outside adviser said. The decision to defy the White House came in the form of a weeklong adjournment of the House yesterday afternoon.

They really only have one card to play, and when it doesn't work, there's nowhere else to go in the deck.

Now, in a just world that would be that. The Democrats simply wouldn't ever take this bill up again, would let FISA remain the law of the land, and would move on to other things and chuckle when Bush throws a temper tantrum every other day. But this is of course the Democrats we're talking about here. So the next sentence in the article I cited is:

Pelosi said she instructed committee chairmen to begin talks with their Democratic counterparts in the Senate, who this week supported the administration's position on the surveillance bill, suggesting that a compromise might be possible in the coming weeks.

There's no compromise necessary. FISA works fine, you can add a patch to foreign-to-foreign calls that go through an American switcher, and move on.

So I'm skeptical this will hold. Still, the Democrats have to be enjoying how they stood up to the President and nothing happened. They didn't spontaneously combust, the world didn't come to an end, and Republicans didn't turn into giants. Glenn Greenwald captures my thoughts pretty well.

On one level, it's difficult to maintain any sustained optimism about the House's defiance yesterday. They were acting far more out of resentment over the procedural treatment to which they were subjected by the White House and, more so, the Senate -- having a bill dropped in their lap again just a couple of days before a deadline and told that they had to pass it, as is, and immediately -- than out of any principled objection to warrantless eavesdropping or telecom amnesty.

And it's painfully easy to envision more than enough "Blue Dogs" eventually joining their GOP colleagues to pass the Senate bill, thus handing the White House yet another complete victory, even if it comes a little later than it was demanded. In light of the endless series of events over the last twelve months, the hope that some sort of actual conviction will cause this obstructionism to be permanent is far too naive for any rational person to entertain seriously.

Still, basic human nature -- if nothing else -- dictates that having finally liberated themselves, however fleetingly, from the truly moronic rule of the Ted "Osama-is-Celebrating" Poes of the world, and having seen that -- as McJoan put it -- "the Democrats stood up to Bush, and the world didn't end," Democrats will crave more of the sweet taste of dignity and autonomy [...]

When Democrats actually engage the debate and make their case unapologetically and with some passion, as they remarkably did yesterday, then journalists can and -- at least to some extent -- will convey the message. It's when they run away and hide and act defensively that their message does not get across. One can only hope, even while harboring substantial doubt, that having a taste of this success will drive them to crave more. Our country really can't afford to be bullied any longer by Ted Poe's fantasy jihadi parties and George W. Bush's "you're-all-going-to-die-unless- I-get-everything-I-want" threats.

Contrary to the belief of David Broder and his friends that more meek agreement with the President's demands -- i.e, "bipartisanship" -- is needed, what any healthy democracy desperately requires is precisely this type of adversarial dynamic. The Leader needs to be "defied" and "challenged" and his demands -- especially those for greater unchecked power -- need to be refused if we are to maintain basic "checks and balances" and some form of an accountable government. This is exactly what we have been so destructively lacking.

It remains to be seen if the Dems will truly get the message.