The Democrats appear to be sliding into just such a calculation
as they signal a new willingness – especially in the Senate – to give
George W. Bush pretty much whatever he wants on a new spying bill and
to push for a more belligerent approach toward Iran.
As the New
York Times reported on Oct. 9, “two months after insisting they would
roll back broad eavesdropping powers won by the Bush administration,
Democrats in Congress appear ready to make concessions that could
extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency.
“Administration
officials say they are confident they will win approval of the
broadened authority that they secured temporarily in August as Congress
rushed toward recess. Some Democratic officials concede that they may
not come up with enough votes to stop approval.” [
NYT, Oct. 9, 2007]
Indeed,
congressional Democrats may end up granting the administration even
more power than they did when they crumbled under political pressure in
August and rushed through the loosely worded “Protect America Act of
2007.”
Along with granting President Bush broad new surveillance
powers, the law gave legal immunity to telecommunications companies
that assist the government’s spying in the future. But the
administration now is sensing that it also can secure amnesty for
companies that have collaborated with government eavesdropping orders
in the past and are facing lawsuits from customers complaining that
their rights were violated.
While retreating in the face of
fears that they otherwise will be dubbed "soft on terror," the
congressional Democrats have narrowed their hopes to possibly inserting
an increased role for the secret court created by the 1978 Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act in overseeing the spying.
Broader Law
Though
sold last summer as an important anti-terror law, the “Protect America
Act” doesn’t actually mention the word “terrorism” nor is it the
narrowly constructed revision of the FISA law that it was called in
much of the press coverage in early August.
The supposed fix
that the administration said it wanted was to let the NSA intercept
messages from two foreign entities whose communications went through a
U.S. switching station. That could have been easily corrected with a
narrow amendment.
Instead, with the Democrats fretting that the
Republicans would bash them for taking an August recess without first
closing this security gap, the Bush administration rammed through a
much broader law.
The “Protect America Act” granted the NSA
sweeping powers to spy on anyone “reasonably believed to be outside the
United States” who might possess “foreign intelligence information,”
defined as anything that could be useful to U.S. foreign policy.
In
other words, the Bush administration’s controversial post-9/11 decision
to forego court warrants when intercepting electronic communications
when one party is outside the United States and the other is inside was
effectively legalized retroactively.
The law’s language didn’t
even require that the person outside the United States have any alleged
connection to terrorism or that the person be a foreigner. All that was
required was a sign-off by the Attorney General and the Director of
National Intelligence, two Bush political appointees.
When the
scope of the Democratic cave-in became apparent to Americans concerned
about constitutional protections, a furor erupted. House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi’s office reported receiving more than 200,000 angry e-mails.
Stung
by the reaction, Democratic leaders promised that the spying law would
be revisited once Congress returned from its summer recess, rather than
waiting around for a required reauthorization of the law in February
2008. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “
New Spy Law Broader Than Thought.”]
Second Roll-Over
However,
it now appears that congressional Democrats are setting the stage for a
second capitulation out of fear that the Republicans would paint any
rollback in the spying law as “soft on terror” and that the right-wing
media would smear Democrats with a broad brush in Campaign 2008.
The
national Democrats worry that the “soft on terror” charge could
jeopardize their prospects for holding – and possibly expanding – their
congressional majorities and for reclaiming the White House under their
expected nominee, Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Given the unpopularity
of President Bush and the disarray within the Republican Party, the
Democratic leaders see a golden opportunity in Election 2008. So, they
don’t want to take what they regard as undue political risks.
This
“play-it-safe” pattern fits with Democratic behavior in 2002 when the
strategy was to give President Bush his Iraq War authorization – thus
blunting the “softness” charge – and then hope to prevail in the
election based on domestic issues.
Despite the Democratic
cave-in on Iraq, Bush’s right-wing allies still bashed the Democrats as
weak on national security – even likening triple-amputee Vietnam
veteran and Georgia Sen. Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden. The
Republicans rolled up majorities in both the House and Senate.
In
Campaign 2004, the Democrats turned to Sen. John Kerry of
Massachusetts, a Vietnam War hero who was considered somewhat safe
because he had voted to give Bush authority to invade Iraq. The
Republicans, however, didn’t miss a beat, questioning Kerry’s Vietnam
War heroism and dismissing him as a weak-kneed flip-flopper on Iraq.
Campaign
2006 was a divergence from the Democratic pattern, with the party’s
congressional candidates taking a tougher stance against Bush and
bashing the Republican majorities in Congress as the President’s rubber
stamp. The result was a surprising Democratic victory in both the House
and Senate.
Since then, however, as Democratic prospects
brightened for further gains in 2008, the leadership has chosen to play
it safe, avoiding a serious showdown with Bush over Iraq War funding
and rejecting rank-and-file demands for impeachment hearings.
Now,
as Hillary Clinton consolidates her lead in the 2008 Democratic
presidential race, she appears to be eyeing a similar strategy,
shifting back toward the “tough-guy/gal” positions that she adopted in
supporting the Iraq War from 2002 to 2005.
She joined other
senior Democrats in backing a resolution co-authored by neoconservative
Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut calling on Bush to designate
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a “terrorist organization,” a move that Sen.
Jim Webb, D-Virginia, warned could be a prelude to a wider Mid-east
war. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “
Hillary Prods Bush to Go After Iran.”]
The
Democrats may think that by giving Bush new spying powers they also can
finesse the “soft on terror” charge in 2008. More likely, however, a
new cave-in will simply demoralize the Democratic base and make the
Democratic candidates look weak and indecisive to voters who are
concerned about the nation projecting a strong image in a dangerous
world.
One way to address this recurring political dynamic would
be for American progressives to invest much more heavily in their own
media infrastructure, so it can begin to match up with the juggernaut
that the Right has built over the past three decades.
But the
Left continues to pay insufficient attention to the nation’s media
imbalance, apparently hoping against hope that the mainstream corporate
media will rediscover its journalistic principles and start challenging
the Bush administration more forcefully.
In the meantime, even
on vital issues of war and constitutional principles, the national
Democrats apparently have concluded that their best hope is to duck
confrontations and do whatever’s necessary to accommodate aggressive
Republicans and their right-wing media allies.
Writings 
An intriguing part of the Washington political dynamic is that the more the Democrats think they might win an upcoming election, the more timid they become – fearful that they will give the powerful right-wing media machine some issue that will destroy their victory dreams. 
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