QOTD: Dana Milbank
by digby
On the liberal change of heart about government surveillance and the 4th Amendment, including the entire leadership of the Democratic Party:
I kept looking for liberal dissent — and then, on Wednesday morning, the news wires reported that a group called Voice of Resistance was meeting outside the Capitol, where demonstrators would proclaim Snowden a hero and flog an effigy of Republican Rep. Peter King (N.Y.), one of the first to brand Snowden a traitor. I arrived at the appointed place and time but found no protest. Instead, there were six journalists and a lone demonstrator, who was wearing an antiabortion baseball cap. He told me the group was actually a right-wing outfit. “The others are parking the car,” he explained, before turning the topic to Rush Limbaugh.
That's a sad comment on ... everything.
But if you seek any more proof than you already have that this issue creates the strangest bedfellows, this conclusion by uber-Villager Milbank should provide it:
While Reid tests the political winds to determine which constitutional rights Americans should have, those who should be overseeing the program are instead defending it with a just-trust-me logic. Feinstein declared that “these programs are within the law.” The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), promised that “we’re not violating any constitutional rights.” Both said they’d like to see more about the program declassified, but their past efforts to produce more disclosure have been weak.
There are a few Democrats who have upheld the party’s tradition of championing civil liberties — such as John Conyers (Mich.), who is introducing a bill with conservative Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) to curtail the program, and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced legislation backed by eight senators requiring more disclosure of secret court rulings.
But the Conyers bill is likely to go nowhere in the House, and Reid was cool to the Merkley proposal, saying only that “I’ll be happy to take a look.”
If he does look, he’ll find that they’re doing what progressives should do: Protecting the people from a too-secretive government.
I guess I really shouldn't be all that shocked that a member of the press would take this stand. After all, telling people what their government is doing is in the job description. What's really surprising is how many members of the press are eagerly defending the government keeping its secrets --- even as if seeks to prosecute journalists for doing what the first amendment to the constitution clearly gives them the right to do.
It certainly does bring home, once again, just how easy it is for crazed politicians to impeach presidents over nothing, steal elections, start wars, monitor citizens, appease rich people --- and God only knows what else. Why shouldn't they? Hardly anyone gives a damn, not even in the so-called free press.
Good for Milbank.
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