Courage and Hypocrisy Honors

Tonight's profile in political courage goes to: Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT)! Standing nearly alone (Senators Kennedy (D-MA), Kerry (D-MA), & Feingold (D-WI) stood with him), Chris Dodd effectively filibustered and blocked the collusion by Senate Republicans AND Democrats to cave-in to White House demands that the FISA Act (Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act) be amended to grant retroactive immunity from lawsuit or prosecution to communications companies that cooperated with illegal government spying on citizens' phone calls and emails without a warrant. The other Democratic senators who, like Dodd, are running for U.S. president, Sens. Clinton (D-NY), Obama (D-IL), and Biden (D-DL), verbally opposed this immunity, but ONLY Dodd flew back to Washington to prevent the vote. The House had already updated the FISA law without the retroactive immunity. So, this action kills this bill until January and it runs out in February. If activists and people who care about the Constitution can stand strong, in February this thing will lapse and go back to the original 1978 law--which is perfectly adequate for national security without eroding the right to privacy, presumption of innocence, due process, etc. Folks should send emails to Sen. Dodd thanking him for his courage and to Sens. Clinton, Obama, and Biden, taking them to task--and also to Sen. Majority Leader Reid for not standing up with Dodd and for the Constitution. Write letters to your local paper praising Dodd's actions, too. Dodd is too far down in the polls to become president, but I think he should try to take Reid's place as Sen. Majority Leader. We need a Senate Leader with backbone.

And now, for the political hypocrisy award: That goes to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). A few months ago (October?), at the confirmation hearings of Judge Mukasey as Attorney General, Graham said that it was okay that Mukasey didn't know whether waterboarding was torture. If Congress thinks that it is, it should pass specific legislation outlawing waterboarding and that he, Graham, would vote for it. Well, now it is Graham who is blocking a bill in the Senate that would require the CIA to follow the Army Field Manual (and the Geneva Convention) on interrogation. The Army Field Manual specifically prohibits: stripping prisoners naked (done at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo) or using any sexual intimidation (not to mention worse); electric shock (done at Abu Ghraib), sleep deprivation, prolonged stress positions, beatings, mock executions, and, yes, waterboarding. The House has already passed this bill which Bush plans to veto--but if Graham were a man of his word, he would break with his party and work with Senate Democrats to get this passed. Is Graham a flip-flopper, a hypocrite, or just a LIAR? You decide.

As a bonus, the political booby prize goes to our own Obstructionist-in-Chief. The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee has released a year-end list of the foibles of Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Read the list and then go to the campaign website of Andrew Horne (D-KY) and sign up to help us Ditch Mitch in '08 and get a real leader in the Senate for KY.