I must say it. I hate Harry Reid. Moved by Markos the past two years to give Reid the benefit of the doubt that he was a good and competent leader of the US Senate, the last few months have brought home a devasting reality. Reid is not a progressive leader but a wimpy go-along. He's a rethug in donkey's clothing.
Rather than discussing FISA/telecoms issues here, I want to rail against Harry Reid --what he does and does not do! Harry Reid might as well be a Republicon. He is as unhelpful to progressive positions and fairness to Americans as they are.
Besides that I am sick to death of Harry's cry-baby voice and his cry-baby strategy. As a two-year old I know (who's no cry-baby) is fond of saying: "It's stoo-pid." Harry Reid, a disaster for the Democratic Party, gets worse and worse!
UPDATE: Read Glenn Greenwald's perfect piece Your Harry Reid-led Senate in action.
UPDATED 2: below
UPDATE 2 is this Digby's take.
It's unfathomable that if they all believe that this bill should not pass, that they cannot exert enough power over their own party at this moment of high drama to put a stop to it. The only thing that will happen is that the FISA law that we have been living under from 1978 through August 2007 will remain on the books unchanged. That's it. If these three can't figure out a way to explain that to the people, how in the hell are they going to be able to do it once they are president? They'll be at the mercy of these same Republicans for their entire term.
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Reid not only does not fight to regain FISA jurisdiction, stop illegal spying on US citizens and make telecoms accountable for breaking the law. He does not have the courage and integrity to fight to undo Bush's tax cuts to the wealthy! His positions on these crucial issues reveal Harry Reid's true lack of backbone. Not only is he a mealy mouthed politician, he is also appears to be a greedy sell-out. See below.
FIRST: Emails and phone calls may be collected without protection for citizens against abuse! Harry has given us nothing on this. Am I wrong? If so, tell me. Markos in The Hill todayexpresses his position (which Harry Reid would do well to adopt) and this:
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd (D) once again will lead efforts to strip Senate legislation of the telco amnesty, while Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) appears ready once again to back the Bush administration and its Republican allies.
Thankfully, the two leading Democratic presidential candidates are siding with Dodd. snip In an election year in which Republicans are scrambling for an issue, screaming about national security is the only game they know. This time, Democrats should simply refuse to play.
After seven horrible, tragic years of Bush/Cheney, and then a Democratic victory in 2006, this is the kind of leadership we get.
Reid is against any filibuster and he wants to pass a one-month extension of the so-called "Protect America Act." Cheney and Reid.
Harry's gone hat in hand to the president--nine days before the law expires--to ask him to pressure the Republicans into going along with this. He wants more time. This makes him look like a cry-baby. "Poor us, you have to help us, Mr. Bush. We have just nine days and your guys won't cooperate." Oh, yeah, this is really tough stuff, Senator Reid.
In a letter today to President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) requested White House support for a 30-day extension of the Protect America Act to "ensure that important intelligence gathering activities continue without interruption while we work to strengthen the legal framework for such activities."
Reid said Congress "has worked diligently" on permanent legislation, with the House passing a version in November and two Senate committees approving their own versions. "But it now appears doubtful that a final bill can be negotiated and passed by both Houses prior to the February 1 expiration date," Reid wrote.
... he proposed a short-term extension yesterday but that "unfortunately, Senate Republicans objected."
Reid's letter added: "Congress is working on a bipartisan basis to provide our intelligence professionals with the tools they need to combat terrorism, while protecting the privacy of law abiding Americans. The legislative process on this critical issue should neither be rushed, nor tainted by political gamesmanship."
Yesterday Reid asked Republicons "to accept a temporary extension."
Of course this gave the rethugs a perfect situation in which to argue that the bill Bush wants could still be enacted prior to the deadline. His counterpart, Mitch McConnell, minority leader, said: "Nothing is more important to protecting the homeland than getting this done and getting it done properly."
Cheney comes out today, at the Heritage Foundation, naturally, and says:
...the law must include immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that assisted the U.S. government's electronic surveillance efforts after Sept. 11, 2001.
"There is no sound reason to pass critical legislation like the Protect America Act and slap an expiration date on it," Cheney said. "The challenge to the country has not expired over the last six months. It won't expire any time soon, and we should not write laws that pretend otherwise."
...."we're reminding Congress they must act now to modernize" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)...
(charging that) a failure by Congress to permanently update FISA "would have predictable and serious consequences."
Of course he did. And Democrats will be made to look like weak dunces.
Harry is also saying he will make any filibuster attempt a painful one.
Many progressives agree with the ACLU which is against the untargeted collection of communications without court order or oversight.
SECOND: When I recently heard this
I did a back flip, which is not easy to do with my two hip, a knee and a shoulder replacements:
[emphasis added mine]
BILL MOYERS: But did you notice what happened when the Democrats briefly toyed with the idea of removing that tax break from the hedge fund and private equity managers Cngress thought very briefly about removing it. And then the industry held a big party for-- Harry Reid, Senate Democratic majority leader down in Las Vegas, and he came back from that big party and said, "I don't think we'll be taking that up anytime soon."
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: The problem of the political donor class's outsized influence and its grip on Congress is bipartisan. There's one party in Washington. It's the party of money. It has different wings and factions. But Washington is the party of money. -- the wealthiest people in America, the large corporations in America, are busy milking the government for everything they can get. And you are paying the price of their free lunch.
Please, can't we have progressive leaders in Congress? It's Stoo-pid not to!