Daily Archives: August 8, 2007

Dirty Rotten Lying Bastards

You might recall Senator Arlen Specter voting for the Military Commissions Act one day, and then defending habeas corpus the next. I consider him nailed on that issue.

Well, now it turns out that he’s not the only dirty rotten lying bastard. The Democrats have done it too, as Dahlia Lithwick so eloquently explains. They denounce Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general, one day, and then vote to give him more eavesdropping powers the next. Observe:

There is virtually no way to reconcile Sen. Mark Pryor’s, D-Ark., claim that Gonzales has “lied to the Senate” and needs to go with his vote to expand the reach of our warrantless eavesdropping program. And how can one possibly square Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s, D-Calif., claim that the AG “just doesn’t tell the truth” with her vote to give him yet more unchecked authority? You either trust this AG with the power to listen in on your phone calls or you do not, and the mumbled justifications for these “yes” votes ( … but Gonzales shares his authority with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell; … but the bill sunsets in six months) do nothing to lessen the impression that some Democrats mistrust Gonzales when it’s convenient, but not when it’s truly important. [This entire paragraph is from Lithwick’s piece, linked above.]

Indeed, there is no way to reconcile what they said with what they did. They are a bunch of goddamn hypocrites and deserve to be thrown out of office.

This breaks a general rule I follow, but I’m starting to think that the Democrats did it just because they can’t wait for their president to have that kind of power.

It appears that there would be no point to even switching parties.

It will probably take me several days before I can become optimistic again and think that this can be fought. For now, I will wallow in my anger.