Bush's surveillance of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil gives Dems the perfect opportunity to direct the public's focus to the issue which gives them their best opportunity for retaking Congress: corruption in the Republican leadership.
All Dems seeking national office in 2006 should repeat the following two points ad nauseum between now and November:
- Bush broke the law, and has made it clear he continues to do so.
- Congress has a constitutional obligation to respond. Congress must either pass legislation explicitly sanctioning Bush's surveillance of U.S. citizens, or impeach.
The Republicans have no good response to this line of argument. Here are their possible responses, with the most likely first:
- Ignore it: If Dems stay focused on the legality of Bush's actions, rather than the question of whether they served a national security interest, then Republicans must either argue that Bush's conduct was legal, or acknowledge it wasn't. If Dems cry 'lawbreaker' often enough, eventually it will sink in that Bush really did break the law. If Republicans refuse to act (by explicitly approving it or impeaching), Dems can hit the corruption argument hard: a Republican-led Congress is ignoring lawbreaking by a Republican president. This opens the door to discuss the widespread corruption among the Republican leadership, which promises to spread even wider as Abramoff turns against them.
- Legislate: If Republicans ignore it 'til Election Day, so much the better for Dems. In the unlikely event they do take up legislation to explicitly sanction surveillance of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, the Dems have already won tacit acknowledgement that Bush broke the law. Then there will be a very public debate about whether it is proper for the U.S. President to order surveillance of Americans. The Republicans will no doubt play up the 'war president' and national security stuff big time, so Dems need to be prepared to respond. They can bring up every argument Republicans used to bash Clinton for Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Elian Gonzales. They can also emphasize that any surveillance authority Congress gives Bush now will also apply to future presidents --- like possibly Hillary. This scenario is not without risk for the Democrats, but I'd like to believe that if Republicans are forced to defend warrantless U.S. government surveillance of U.S. civilians --- especially the kind of fishing expeditions it seems likely the NSA was conducting under Bush's authority --- they will lose.
- Impeach: as if.
I've presented this idea to Pelosi, Emmanuel, Reid and Schumer (via email --- will they ever even see it?), and I would urge others to do the same. If the netroots has any influence with the powers that be (even if Kos
doesn't talk to Emmanuel every day), this would be a great message for them.