Like most of you, I spent last week working myself up into a lather over FISA. I simply could not understand what was happening. We had several smart people tie logic into knots to try justify their capitulation, despite the fact it was clear to literally everyone else how bad and ill-conceived their actions were.
But I can only stay angry for so long, then I start to get calculating. Why is this happening? What do they know that we don't? It seems clear to me that there is something missing from this puzzle. I don't believe it's a matter of electoral politics, because it would be plenty easy to pass a bill that "fixed" FISA without including many of the provisions that have the blogosphere so up in arms.
No, there's a reason the telecom immunity is in there. It's a little too easy to say it's about money, that ATT and co's lobbying efforts are finally paying off. That would explain the immunity, but not many of secrecy provisions around the immunity. In fact, I would imagine the telecoms would prefer that their immunity be made very public. So what's the leverage involved? Follow me over the break...
We know last August Bush used the specter of attacks on DC to get Democrats in-line on FISA. But that was only enough to get a 6 month extension, with no retroactive immunity, and would probably be a less effective tool the second time around. But I think that's the obvious one. I think it's much more likely than my second theory, on which this diary is based, and which is hopefully just my own fever dreamings.
I think Bush is holding Iran hostage. I think he's told Obama and most of the congressional leaders that if they don't let him off the hook, he will provoke war with Iran. It's a pretty sociopathic view of our President, but he started a war as an excuse to loot the treasury on behalf of his corporate friends, so I don't think it's too far off to say he might threaten to do it again to keep himself out of jail.
Certainly, he couldn't simply declare war on Iran, but I imagine that both officially and unofficially he could do a tremendous amount of damage to the possibility of peace. If nuclear weapons can accidentally get flown across the country, who's to say they couldn't accidentally get shipped to Iran? But that's just one of many avenues open to a President who has nothing to lose, and no concern for human life.
As I said, let's hope this is dead wrong, and that Obama is going along with the FISA bill because he sees a silver lining, not because he's trying to keep a madman's finger off the big red button.