Bipartisanship: Warrantless Wiretapping, No Says Senate

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday September 07, 2006 · 7:19 PM PDT

2006/09/07 · 19:19

The good guys, led by Russ Feingold, won one on Capitol Hill today:

President Bush's support proved insufficient to push a bill authorizing his warrantless wiretapping program through the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.
Sen. Arlen Specter, the committee's chairman, said the bill stalled because of election-year obstructionism.
"We have seen the incipient stage of filibuster by amendment," the Pennsylvania Republican testily declared as he called off a vote to move his bill to the Senate floor. "Filibuster by speech, filibuster by amendment. Obstructionism."
The target of his ire was Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., who spoke against the bill for about a quarter of the panel's two-hour meeting and offered four amendments. . . .
Opposition to the bill was no surprise. Feingold and five other senators, three of them Republicans, wrote Specter a day earlier complaining that a new version of his bill should be studied further before the panel votes.
Forced to delay his committee's vote, Specter grumbled that without his legislation the White House would continue its domestic wiretapping program virtually unchecked by the courts.
One such measure, backed by a group of moderate Senate Republicans, poses the biggest threat to Specter's bill because it would impose tighter restrictions on the administration's power to wiretap. The House, too, was considering a measure that would impose tougher checks on the president's power.

"Election year obstructionism." That's a good one, particularly considering none of the six Senators who wrote to Specter about their opposition to his legislation are facing reelection this year. But I guess we can put to rest the lie that Specter is a moderate Republican. Despite his protestations that not enacting his legislation will leave the administration's warrantless wiretapping unchecked, his legislation--written with Cheney--practically removes the FISA Court from the picture. No, Specter is not a moderate, and he's not trying to provide a check on this overreaching executive. He's just one more Rubber Stamp.

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