When the Beltway media is happy with bipartisanship, this is what it looks like:

You’re reading that “bipartisan” vote right: 1 f’ing Republican broke ranks. This is how Greenwald put it:

But this absurd praise underscores what the Washington power structure means when they speak of “bipartisanship” — it means having the Republican Party demand something, and then having enough Democrats agree to it to ensure it passes in essentially undiluted form.

…

In January, I compiled a list of the Great Bipartisan Compromises of the Bush era and demonstrated that they are characterized by one common attribute: namely, they are supported by almost all Republicans and then enough Democrats from a split caucus to ensure its passage.

That list is located here, and it’s a damning critique of the way Democrats and the Beltway media have approached bipartisanship. It’s a sham, meant to fool people into believing we’re getting good policy here. To be clear, this law is good for only the phone companies and the people in this administration. No one else benefits.

If this wasn’t clear, Greenwald highlights the following:

To The New York Times’ Eric Lichtblau, GOP House Whip Roy Blunt derided the telecom amnesty provision as nothing more than a “formality” which would inevitably lead to the immediate and automatic dismissal of all lawsuits against the telecoms, while Sen. Kit Bond taunted the Democrats for giving away even more than they had to in order to get a deal: “I think the White House got a better deal than they even had hoped to get.”

The Democratic leadership in the House and Senate is broken. This needs to stop, and we need “better Democrats” as Atrios puts it.

At least my rep, Rep. John Larson, was on the right side of this bill.

This is frustrating, but I don’t have time to address this. Apparently, Democrats have agreed to a “compromise” on the telecom immunity issue, and from all reports, they basically caved to the Administration by asking for a meaningless concession. This reeks of lobbying money, but I don’t have time to dig into this. Instead, I’ll point you over at the writers at ObWi who have a series of posts and links to the wider blog and news world for more information. Here’s the key point:

Most importantly, though, when the government asks someone to break the law, they hold a lot of the cards: the prestige of the Presidency, the power to exclude companies from federal contracts, and so on. Just about the only reason someone might have to say no, other than conscience, is the fear of legal liability. By immunizing these companies, we make it much more likely that the next time some President who thinks he has dictatorial powers asks a company to break the law, it will do so. And that’s just wrong.

The U.S. doesn’t need a President “who thinks he has dictatorial powers” for this to be a problem. We just need a President who believes that the law shouldn’t apply to them. Maybe they think they’re acting in the greater good, but are mistaken. Maybe they’re eavesdropping on political opponents masquerading as legitimate counter-intelligence. We have one now who believes in signing statements and no accountability for his office. Just look at the firing scandals in the various federal agencies. We don’t want to make breaking the law easier of all things.

Anyway, here are the links. The excerpt above is from the first link below:

• FISA “Compromise” by Hilzoy
• FISA: Why It Matters by Hilzoy
• Steny’s Bold “Ignore the Rubes” Strategy by Publius

Read them all. They each address the issue from a slightly different angle, but the conclusion is consistent: the Democrats caved on a policy that is wrong for America, wrong for people who believe in liberty, and wrong for the safety and security of the nation. This compromise doesn’t do anything to help the war on terror, it simply makes it easier for the government to pressure private companies to break the law.

Also, be sure to follow some of the links, especially to Greenwald, who has a series of posts up going into excruciating detail (as only a lawyer could do) if you’re into that. The post linked in this paragraph is the most interesting, but if you want more background on how the bill came to be, who wrote it, and other pertinent details, check out the posts from a few days ago about Steny Hoyer (and no, he didn’t write the bill).

Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold have managed to get the FISA bill pulled until after January even though Harry Reid tried to get a vote on the bill today. Harry Reid has been a disappointment, and this Congress has been awful all around, both parties. Of two bills that strengthened FISA protections, Reid chose the bill that contained retroactive immunity and fewer safeguards for our privacy and against executive abuse. This even though Dodd had put a hold on the bill, which Reid has honored from Republican senators time and time again. There is no explanation for this.

Here is Sen. Dodd explaining why he held the floor for hours today and was prepared to go 30 hours if necessary.

I also should point out that he is still campaigning hard in Iowa. He isn’t the sexy choice, but he showed real leadership today, giving up the chance to campaign to come back to Washington and fight for an issue he truly cares about. The other candidates, who supposedly supported Dodd and the filibuster, couldn’t be bothered to leave their campaigns behind. That’s disappointing. It’s also why, even given the historic opportunity to elect the first minority or first female President, I will be voting for Dodd.

This fight isn’t finished, and Dodd and Feingold will need your support in January as this bill comes up again. Follow the news and contact your Senators and Congressmen about this issue. It’s important because in our system of government is built on checks and balances. Retroactive immunity is an additional insult in this bill. These companies could’ve done what others did, and refused to cooperate without a court order.

But the most damning reason to kill this provision: The New York Times reported this weekend that these surveillance programs were started before 9/11. These programs weren’t about terrorism, they weren’t a tradeoff made because of 9/11. They were part of a larger plan by Bush and Cheney about a powerful executive branch with limited interference from Congress.

Even if 9/11 were the impetus for the bill, there were better ways to do this. Here’s Kevin Drum:

But it’s still worth noting that it didn’t have to be this way. After all, hardly anyone, either liberal or conservative, would have objected if the Bush administration had gotten telecoms cooperation as a genuine emergency measure following 9/11. As Ron Suskind reminds us in The One Percent Doctrine, this was the situation at the time: Al-Qaeda terrorists had just attacked the country; further attacks seemed highly likely; our intelligence network was scrambling and nearly blind; we had good reason to believe that Osama bin Laden might be negotiating with Pakistani radicals to obtain a nuclear weapon; and credible reports suggested that al-Qaeda might also be on the road to manufacturing weaponized anthrax. Under the circumstances, asking telecoms companies to cooperate on an interim basis even in the absence of legal approval would hardly have been inappropriate.

But that’s not what happened. As Suskind also reminded us, instead of requesting temporary cooperation and then asking Congress for the implementing legislation within a few months, the Bush administration insisted on going it alone. Dick Cheney had long been obsessed with reasserting the power of the executive branch, and Bush himself was obviously smitten with the idea of being a “wartime president.” It was a toxic combination. As a result, instead of calming down after the initial panic and getting Congress fully involved, Bush and Cheney insisted on moving ahead for years in a legal gray zone.

So now we end up where we are today. Instead of an emergency request that was quickly put on a firm legislative foundation, we have a legal quagmire. And because Congress — Republicans and Democrats alike — went along with this even after we had gotten our bearings and had no excuse for continuing to operate on an emergency basis, they’re just as happy as anyone to put this whole episode behind them and cave in on the retroactive immunity issue.

And what happens the next time a president demands telecoms cooperation for years on end without legal justification? Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?

That is the problem. As Dodd says in the above video, we learned these lessons during Watergate and the Nixon administration where the Church Committee recommended what became the FISA law. History is bound to repeat itself unless we learn from it.

I’m proud that Chris Dodd is my Senator. He understands the essence of what has been wrong about the Bush years and is fighting to bring us back to a more sane balance.