More Patriot Games
I've always looked at the Patriot Act, like most things in life, in very practical terms: without it America was naked to terrorist attack, as the 9/11 attacks proved beyond a reasonable doubt; with it there hasn't been another terrorist strike here at home since. The bitching and moaning about the PA from left-wing extremists has been driven by their ignorance/suicide dynamic, knee-jerk sedition penchant, and all-around hatred of anything that President Bush favors.
The one thing I never liked about the PA is that it had a sunset provision. That guaranteed a knock-down, drag-out, pier-six, Katy-bar-the-door battle against the perveyors of ignorant suicide, knee-jerk sedition, and Bushophobia - plus the obligatory handful of RINOs - to renew a proven anti-terror tool we could not afford to lose.
Sure enough, that day of reckoning has arrived (via CQ):
Remember that part when reading what comes next:
Thank you, Senators Sununu, Craig, Murkowski, and Hagel. I would never have imagined that a pencil-dick like Dirty Harry would have ever been offered four fig leaves at one time, but there they are. Meanwhile, a substantial number of House Donks voted for the Patriot Act renewal, which passed the lower chamber with 251 votes. That would seem to indicate that there's a lot more bipartisan support for the PA than their is "bipartisan" opposition.
And with good reason. As NRO detailed at length yesterday, only two of the sixteen PA provisions have ever been controversial, and the renewal bill extends those two for additional four year sunsets while making the remainder permanent, most importantly including keeping down the artificial bureaucratic wall between the FBI and CIA that prevented the information-sharing necessary to break up terrorist cells and avert major attacks - as has happened a number of times since the PA was originally enacted.
The two "controversial" items are the library records and roving wiretap provisions, neither of which, in actual fact, are new criminal justice tools nor has ever been abused. Deleting the former would simply turn public libraries into terror cell safe havens, and getting rid of the latter would be akin to pretending that cell phones don't exist. Nevertheless, the PA renewal significantly waters down both and subjects them to yet another gauntlet four years hence. And still that isn't enough.
But the devil, as usual, isn't in the details, but in Democrat power lust and random GOP spinelessness. Indeed, there's a kind of Bizarro World surreality to watching the same minority party that purportedly complains the Bush Administration isn't doing enough on homeland security rail against that function's number one weapon. It's even more incomprehensible than their relentless attempts to Vietnamize Iraq, because while the latter is fighting and defeating the enemy in his own back yard - which is imperative to our ultimate victory - the former is preventing the enemy from launching any counter-offensives where they struck their first, and to date mightiest, blow.
I suppose the two kind of mutually backhand each other with faint praise for the President's national and homeland security policies - the Donks must think, deep down, that we're winning the GWOT if we don't need Patriot Act protections anymore, and vice versa - but that's only if one insists upon forcing the square peg of rationality into the round hole of left-wing fanaticism.
The only calculation to their stances on these issues is of the political variety. They'd have us quit the war against Islamic fundamentalism overseas AND at home. Why? Because they know it would be a disaster, and that they could then hang that disaster around the neck of George Bush and the Republican Party.
The only road the Democrats seek is the one that takes them back to power. If that road is soaked in American civilian blood, that's a price they're apparently willing to pay.
Gives a whole new meaning to "Social Security," doesn't it?
The one thing I never liked about the PA is that it had a sunset provision. That guaranteed a knock-down, drag-out, pier-six, Katy-bar-the-door battle against the perveyors of ignorant suicide, knee-jerk sedition, and Bushophobia - plus the obligatory handful of RINOs - to renew a proven anti-terror tool we could not afford to lose.
Sure enough, that day of reckoning has arrived (via CQ):
The real fight will be later this week in the Senate, when Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, plans to try to force an end to debate on the bill so it can be voted on before Congress adjourns for the year. The Patriot Act, which was modified in the bill now under consideration, expires at the end of the year.
Other key Democrats such as Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, also have said they will support a filibuster. Four Republicans - Senators John E. Sununu of New Hampshire, Larry E. Craig of Idaho, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska - said yesterday that they will join Democrats in opposing the legislation, even helping block a final vote on its passage. ...
Remember that part when reading what comes next:
"Last week, Democrat leadership offered a cut-and-run strategy in Iraq," Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson said. "Now they're siding with the ACLU instead of the Fraternal Order of Police in the war on terror."
If a filibuster succeeds and the two sides fail to reach a compromise that the House signs off on, the Patriot Act will expire. The campaign ads against Democrats would write themselves, Republicans said yesterday. But Democrats said they are confident that such a political strategy won't work this time. "Republicans are spinning themselves so hard, they're forgetting that there's bipartisan opposition to this bill," Reid spokesman Jim Manley said. [emphasis added]
Thank you, Senators Sununu, Craig, Murkowski, and Hagel. I would never have imagined that a pencil-dick like Dirty Harry would have ever been offered four fig leaves at one time, but there they are. Meanwhile, a substantial number of House Donks voted for the Patriot Act renewal, which passed the lower chamber with 251 votes. That would seem to indicate that there's a lot more bipartisan support for the PA than their is "bipartisan" opposition.
And with good reason. As NRO detailed at length yesterday, only two of the sixteen PA provisions have ever been controversial, and the renewal bill extends those two for additional four year sunsets while making the remainder permanent, most importantly including keeping down the artificial bureaucratic wall between the FBI and CIA that prevented the information-sharing necessary to break up terrorist cells and avert major attacks - as has happened a number of times since the PA was originally enacted.
The two "controversial" items are the library records and roving wiretap provisions, neither of which, in actual fact, are new criminal justice tools nor has ever been abused. Deleting the former would simply turn public libraries into terror cell safe havens, and getting rid of the latter would be akin to pretending that cell phones don't exist. Nevertheless, the PA renewal significantly waters down both and subjects them to yet another gauntlet four years hence. And still that isn't enough.
But the devil, as usual, isn't in the details, but in Democrat power lust and random GOP spinelessness. Indeed, there's a kind of Bizarro World surreality to watching the same minority party that purportedly complains the Bush Administration isn't doing enough on homeland security rail against that function's number one weapon. It's even more incomprehensible than their relentless attempts to Vietnamize Iraq, because while the latter is fighting and defeating the enemy in his own back yard - which is imperative to our ultimate victory - the former is preventing the enemy from launching any counter-offensives where they struck their first, and to date mightiest, blow.
I suppose the two kind of mutually backhand each other with faint praise for the President's national and homeland security policies - the Donks must think, deep down, that we're winning the GWOT if we don't need Patriot Act protections anymore, and vice versa - but that's only if one insists upon forcing the square peg of rationality into the round hole of left-wing fanaticism.
The only calculation to their stances on these issues is of the political variety. They'd have us quit the war against Islamic fundamentalism overseas AND at home. Why? Because they know it would be a disaster, and that they could then hang that disaster around the neck of George Bush and the Republican Party.
The only road the Democrats seek is the one that takes them back to power. If that road is soaked in American civilian blood, that's a price they're apparently willing to pay.
Gives a whole new meaning to "Social Security," doesn't it?
posted by JASmius at 9:39 PM
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