DOMESTIC SPYING….Over the weekend Dick Cheney made a point of saying that congressional Democrats were fully on board with the NSA’s domestic spying program during the 2001-04 period. This may or may not be completely true, but there’s plenty of evidence that it’s mostly true: the NSA program really was approved on a bipartisan level. Spencer Ackerman comments:
Cheney might not be acting in good faith, but he’s nevertheless pointing to something barometrically significant. In Washington, the phrase “bipartisan” is supposed to cash out to something like “legal” or “wise” or “no longer controversial” or “kosher.” The Germans probably have a word that’s a more acceptable translation. In any event, that’s self-evidently foolish: lots of people can make mistakes and lots of people can make venal decisions, and it’s not a function of belonging to one political party or the other. Cheney doesn’t get off the hook if Nancy Pelosi is on it with him. Naturally, what I imagine Cheney’s doing is warning the Democrats off creating an independent commission into the abuses of the administration, lest it go after them too, but that’s all the more reason one should be created.
Agreed. Unfortunately, there appears to be literally no one who has any incentive to do this. Not Republicans, not Democrats, not Bush loyalists, and not Barack Obama, who voted for the wiretapping bill earlier this year and really has no reason to want this to continue to be an issue. Unfortunately, this whole issue is probably destined to fall quickly down the memory hole.
