Democrats' strategy: Strength through bowing

[BurtWorm]

From Glenn Greenwald:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/10/democrats/index.html


Historians writing about the Bush era were given a great gift yesterday -- an iconic headline that explains so much of what has happened in this country over the last seven years:



Their rationale for doing that is that it prevents the Republicans from depicting them as "weak," because nothing exudes strength like bowing. Here's more evidence of the brilliance of the Democratic strategy to show how "strong" and "tough" they are by bowing to Bush and all of his demands, from this morning's New York Times article by Eric Lichtblau:

WASHINGTON — The Senate gave final approval on Wednesday to a major expansion of the government's surveillance powers, handing President Bush one more victory in a series of hard-fought clashes with Democrats over national security issues. . . .

Even as his political stature has waned, Mr. Bush has managed to maintain his dominance on national security issues in a Democratic-led Congress. He has beat back efforts to cut troops and financing in Iraq, and he has won important victories on issues like interrogation tactics and military tribunals in the fight against terrorism. . . .

Debate over the surveillance law was the one area where Democrats had held firm in opposition. . . . .But in the end Mr. Bush won out, as administration officials helped forge a deal between Republican and Democratic leaders that included almost all the major elements the White House wanted. The measure gives the executive branch broader latitude in eavesdropping on people abroad and at home who it believes are tied to terrorism, and it reduces the role of a secret intelligence court in overseeing some operations.

President Bush generously patted the Democrats on the head for their compliance with what they were told to do. Here is the head-patting headline on the White House's website:



The Leader wasn't entirely pleased, as it took longer for Democrats to comply with his orders than he wanted, and he thus pointed out -- with the disapproving tone a teacher uses to scold a mildly delinquent student -- that the bill "is long overdue." Nonetheless, he singled out the most compliant members for special praise:

I want to thank the members of my administration who worked hard to get this legislation passed. I thank the Democratic and Republican leadership in the Congress for their efforts, particularly House Majority Leader Hoyer, House Republican Whip Blunt, Senators Bond and Rockefeller, Congressmen Hoekstra, Reyes and Smith.

...

[villager]

1. "We'll wear the Republicans out by giving them everything they want, until...

...they're too exhausted to ask for more terrible legislation!"

[DailyGrind51]

2. Isn't that how Rocky Balboa won?

He permitted Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, and Drago to wear themselves out by punching him, THEN he would beat the crap out of them when they were too tired to fight back!

[BurtWorm]

4. Except that he didn't really win, did he? He wound up standing, bloody and wobbly.

But standing. :eyes:

[BurtWorm]

3. Greenwald continued:

On the bright side, we can rest assured that -- even though there is no individual warrant requirement for huge categories of eavesdropping on our telephone calls and email communications -- they promise not to abuse that power:

There is nothing to fear in the bill, said Senator Christopher S. Bond, the Missouri Republican who was a lead negotiator, "unless you have Al Qaeda on your speed dial."

Such promises -- that our magnanimous Government Leaders will only use eavesdropping powers for the Right Reasons, and therefore we can trust in them and thus don't need any of this bothersome "oversight" nonsense -- don't really have a very glorious history in our country. From a July 25, 1969 article in Time:

During his presidential campaign, Richard Nixon said that he would take full advantage of the new law -- a promise that raised fears of a massive invasion of privacy. To calm those fears, the Administration last week issued what amounted to an official statement on the subject.

In his first news conference since becoming the President's chief legal officer, Attorney General John N. Mitchell pointedly announced that the incidence of wiretapping by federal law enforcement agencies had gone down, not up, during the first six months of Republican rule. Mitchell refused to disclose any figures, but he indicated that the number was far lower than most people might think. "Any citizen of this United States who is not involved in some illegal activity," he added, "has nothing to fear whatsoever."

...

One can mock that authoritarian, un-American mentality if one likes (I trust my Leader with unchecked power because he's Good!), but it's a perfectly mainstream view. It's the precise mentality that led the Democratic-led Congress yesterday to pass a bill with broad new eavesdropping powers, with Kit Bond and Jay Rockefeller playing the role of John Mitchell.

...

There are many things that one can say about what the Democrats did yesterday. Claiming that they showed how "strong" they are, or avoided being depicted by Republicans as "weak," isn't one of them.

[BurtWorm]

5. kick