Democrats are sheeple, too!

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 13-2 in favor of Bush's "compromise" on the FISA/spying program. This "compromise" gives Bush the main thing he wants - retroactively granting legal immunity to the telecom companies accused of illegally providing information and allowing wiretaps for the Bushies! The Bush administration's main goal here is to prevent us from ever knowing just who was illegally wiretapped! The forty lawsuits filed against the telecom companies can only make us wonder how many others were tapped illegally without knowing it!

Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV), head of the committee, says that the government, not the companies, should bear responsibility for legal legitimacy. This smacks of the infamous Nixon line: "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal." Since the Bushies never take responsibility for anything, the implication remains: No one will ever be held accountable for the illegal programs the telecom companies acquiesced to!

If there is a silver lining here, it is that the immunity only covers lawsuits on illegal acts committed after 9/11. Woo. Hoo.

ELPN hero Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is pretty pissed - from the day before the Intel Committee approved the measure! Only Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) opposed it. Too bad other Democratic senators did not listen to one of their elder statesmen! Presidential hopeful Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) has vowed to prevent the measure from being voted on by the full Senate, so expect a fight over this in the right-wing knee-jerk media (OMG Democrats are being obstructionists!)...

Unsurprisingly for a Bush compromise necessity, legal scholars say this may set a bad precedent. The problem is, it's already been done before - Robert Kennedy Sr. had seen it, as had others in the recent past of our nation.

We should all call Sen. Chris Dodd and let him know we approve of his willingness to "obstruct" this Bush "compromise." Bush says his veto potential ensures his legitimacy, yet he insists that the Democrat-run Senate and House vacate their legitimacy because he MUST have his way.