Fear's Triumphant Return

Glenn Greenwald captures perfectly the horrifying and absurd spectacle of tough guy conservatives riling up the public with bedwetting fear over prisoners possibly being held in American prisons, and weak-kneed Democrats going along with them. These arrested development conservatives, afraid of their own shadow, are seen as the Serious people by the national media, who then back Democrats into a corner to force them to be as afraid as everyone else, and Democrats inexplicably take the bait. It tells you something that it takes Dianne frickin' Feinstein to cut through the B.S. here.

FEINSTEIN: Yes, we have maximum security prisons in California eminently capable of holding these people as well, and from which people — trust me — do not escape. So I believe that this has really been an exercise in fear-baiting. I hope it’s not going to be successful.

(See also Dick Durbin)

But of course, it will be, as long as Give 'em Hell Harry Reid refuses to offer any rebuttal to the fearmongering nonsense coming from the right. And so we get the Senate voting 90-6 in favor of right-wing cartoon fantasies. The President caused this by asking for the money without an actual plan in place, but the Pavlovian response to Republican fear card-playing from Senate Dems really makes you sick.