From Open Left It looks like someone is looking for lipstick for a pig. Or maybe it is a fig leaf (albeit much too tiny). Or maybe just political cover before they Roll Over and Capitulate.
Updated
When the football's been snatched away one too many times, I get VERY Wary. From Matt Stoller
If retroactive immunity passes, it's because the Speaker, the House Majority Leader, and Democratic Caucus Chair decided not to fight. This is from Congress Daily:
To break an impasse over legislation overhauling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, House Democratic leaders are considering the option of taking up a Senate-passed FISA bill in stages, congressional sources said today. Under the plan, the House would vote separately on the first title of the bill, which authorizes surveillance activities, and then on the bill's second title, which grants retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that aided the Bush administration's warrantless electronic surveillance activities. The two would be recombined, assuming passage of both titles. In this way, Democratic leaders believe they can give an out to lawmakers opposed to the retroactive immunity provision. Republican leadership sources said their caucus would back such a plan because not only would it give Democratic leaders the out they need, it would provide a political win for the GOP. It remains to be seen if such a move will placate liberal Democrats who adamantly oppose giving in to the Bush administration on the immunity issue.
It's like we're living in a loony bin. Will liberal Democrats in Congress who don't want retroactive immunity be placated by... granting the phone companies retroactive immunity? Stay tuned.
UPDATE
Here is why it is not a good idea to offer this kind of compromise. From a comment to the Front Page discussion by DelPPCV...
Technically, this would allow people opposed to amnesty to vote for surveillance, so I think focusing on amnesty is exactly what the ACLU doesn't want people to do. The basket warrants, etc. in the first part are bad news, and they don't want to let legislators off the hook for those, either. Keeping it all together, as Bush has demanded, has built in a nice poison pill that is preventing majority support. Pelosi's plan, which is borne of the same tired "They might say mean things about us" weakness that we've been fighting for years, is a very bad idea. The likely result? Passage of the first part, defeat of the second part, a conference bill that includes a lot of nasty stuff (but no amnesty), a veto, and (most importantly) momentum in Bush's favor when this starts over once again.
Republicans are going to call Democrats traitors and cowards no matter what. The only defense is to go on offense and repeatedly make the point that this is all about money and scoring points, and Bush and the Republicans couldn't care less about security.