Pardon My Politics

Progressive voters are starting to feel that the Oba­ma Ad­min­is­tra­tion is mov­ing more and more to­wards poli­cies that many who worked to elect Oba­ma have worked to op­pose in re­cent years.

A sim­ple look at past cam­paigns and can­di­dates could pro­vide Re­pub­li­cans with the an­swers they need. Elec­tions are a re­ac­tive/chem­i­cal pro­cess – not a con­form­ing/sci­en­tif­ic one – cam­paigns and elec­tions are more akin to a per­son­al ro­mance than any­thing root­ed in loy­al po­lit­i­cal rea­son­ing.

The idea that Re­pub­li­cans need to find new pol­i­cy ideas – or change their mes­sage to en­tice a cer­tain vot­ing block is wrong. Vot­ers de­cide on their sup­port based on what a can­di­date…

The shock that some lib­er­als dis­play in light of the Democrats’ com­plic­i­ty (or at least com­pli­ance) to the “harsh in­ter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques” is in it­self shock­ing. Are we to be­lieve Congress has nev­er tak­en the time to in­ves­ti­gate and dis­cov­er the acts in­side the in­ter­ro­ga­tion room?

Did White House representatives utilize a well-calculated campaign of fear by threatening to ruin or destroy the reputation of certain companies if they didn’t fall in line? Before providing an answer, let’s look back to an incident that occurred in October 2008 when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gathered executives from America’s nine largest banks in a room, then gave each a one-page document and said, “No one is leaving this room until it’s signed.”

Proving the old axiom that Congress “is the best that money can buy,” congressional Democrats are preparing to gut the Constitution by granting giant telecom companies retroactive immunity and liability protection on warrantless wiretapping by the Bush regime.