Often times when confronted with the cesspool that is modern politics, I am reminded of a line from one of the Star Wars movies. "So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause." It isn't quite thunderous applause that bothers me as I write this, but rather a 68-29 Senate vote.
Often times when confronted with the cesspool that is modern politics, I am reminded of a line from one of the Star Wars movies. "So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause." It isn't quite thunderous applause that bothers me as I write this, but rather a 68-29 Senate vote. The Senate has passed President Bush's FISA Bill, complete with Mr. Bush's protection for his precious telecoms. Once again, our spineless Senate has given the Sith Lords in the White House exactly what they have asked for. Once again, politicians who were elected on the premise of standing up to Bush are doing his bidding. But there is, to continue the Star Wars metaphor, a new hope, and that is the House of Representatives. And Mr. Bush doesn't like the threat these Jedi pose.
"People are wondering why companies need liability protection. Well, if you cooperate with the government and then get sued for billions of dollars because of the cooperation, you're less likely to cooperate." President Bush said.
And, of course, businesses cooperating with our government can be a very good thing. But what about when it isn't? What if our government was asking these companies to break laws? What if this was just another overstepping of the powers allotted to Mr. Bush? And why would these corporations have to worry about being sued "for billions of dollars" if they hadn't broken the laws?
Our President has warned that "millions of lives" hang in the balance over this FISA bill. Such melodrama, Mr. Bush. He sound like a teenage girl whining "but mom, you're, like, ruining my life!"
Of course, Bush is by far not the only politician for whom protecting cronies is more important than serving the citizenry. The Republicans have recently staged a highly publicized walk out in the House of Representatives. You see, their fellow representatives had the audacity to charge Bush aids with crimes they had commited. And the GOP was outraged by this blatant upholding of the law and stormed out. They are following in George's footsteps, after all, playing the role of rotten kid sister to W.'s character of spoiled teenaged daughter.
Tom Ridge has repeatedly and publicly said that the Bush Administration screws with our threat level at what he perceives as at random. We know that threats have been made up or exaggerated in the past in order to sell Bush's policy. Yet he invoked the same threat that he has invoked whenever we have refused to just hand over our rights, our dignity, our country to his whims. He promised a bleak future of death and chaos if the Democrats didn't sign the bill into law.
And than something extraordinary happened, something that Bush, for all his abilities at predicting threats for political motives, did not see comming. The Democrats stood up to him for a change. The House is sticking to its guns, not bowing down before Bush as the Senate recently has. By a 206 to 199 vote, the House has prolonged the debate for three more weeks, leaving Mr. Bush blowing in his own hot air.
Then matters became even worse for Bush. The experts, like usual, came out against him. "Let me be clear: Our ability to track and monitor terrorists overseas would not cease should the Protect America Act expire." Richard Clarke wrote in a recent article for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Clarke is a former Bush and Clinton administration official. He knows what he's talking about when it comes to terrorism, unlike, say, the President of the United States who claimed that Clarke, the Democrats in Congress, and anyone else who doesn't like living in an Orwell novel would get us killed. President Bush remains his cantankerous, proselytizing self.
Sometimes liberty is protected by thunderous applause as well. Sometimes the Jedi do defeat the forces of evil, even in Washington. Let's hope that the Congress does not buckle, and that in the short time it has left in Washington, the Empire does not attempt to strike back.