Comment by evgen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by evgen | Hacker News Reader

It's not really surprising if you consider the options that were available:

1) Renew the current law. No real upside for any legislator, but no significant downside.

2) Reject the current law. Very little upside: the doves, paranoids, libertarians, and tea party activists who might actually care about this options are insignificant minorities within the electorate. Significant downside: it opens a legislator up to all sorts of "<insert incumbent name here> is making it easier for terrorists" attack ads regardless of the actual merits of the argument.

3) Amend the current law. An effort which would have needed to start a while ago. With enough bi-partisan support this could have limited the downside risk and enabled supporters to make the sort of "we are being smart about protecting ourselves form terrorists while protecting liberties" arguments that would have electoral upside, but given the current legislative climate it would have been a hard task to get the early defectors form the status quo which would have provided a bit of momentum.

"2) Reject the current law. Very little upside: the doves, paranoids, libertarians, and tea party activists who might actually care about this options are insignificant minorities within the electorate. Significant downside: it opens a legislator up to all sorts of "<insert incumbent name here> is making it easier for terrorists" attack ads regardless of the actual merits of the argument."

If you haven't noticed, the Republicans and their mainsteram media lapdogs are going to attack the Democrats as being "weak on national security" and "weak on terrorism" no matter what they do.

If they want not to be attacked at all, they should just stay completely out of politics.

Of course, they should pick their battles, and fight the ones that are really important. It's obvious from their inaction on and even outright support of the PATRIOT Act, that civil liberties just aren't that important to them, no matter what their rhetoric might be.

The same has been true regarding their "opposition" to torture, to the Iraq war, to Bush's Supreme Court nominees, their support of the "public option" for health care, etc. The Democrats have shown very little spine on these matters, when it comes time to walk their talk. And the public is noticing. That's why Congress has such a low approval rating, and why the shine is wearing-off Obama.

Their spinelessness and willingness to be the Bush-lite party could cost them dearly in the mid-terms and 2012. They're just lucky the Republican party is tearing itself apart with their "tea party" splintering and fighting over who are the "real conservatives".

Of course, they should pick their battles, and fight the ones that are really important. It's obvious from their inaction on and even outright support of the PATRIOT Act, that civil liberties just aren't that important to them, no matter what their rhetoric might be.

It isn't just that it isn't important, many of them actively oppose it.

Joe Biden's opinion on the patriot act: "I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up [the patriot act] was my bill..."

> Their spinelessness and willingness to be the Bush-lite party could cost them dearly in the mid-terms and 2012.

The republicans could pick up some disaffected democrats as single issue voters on hot-button topics. But the social conservative agenda that the republicans are married to is fairly distasteful to people who regularly vote democrat - even if the parties are 95% identical in practice.

If you haven't noticed, the Republicans and their mainsteram media lapdogs are going to attack the Democrats as being "weak on national security" and "weak on terrorism" no matter what they do.

Of course they were going to get attacked on that point. What matters is if there is a public perception about a candidate or party that the attacks can use as leverage to rise above the level of standard electioneering and actually influence a voter.

The Democrats have shown very little spine on these matters, when it comes time to walk their talk. And the public is noticing. That's why Congress has such a low approval rating, and why the shine is wearing-off Obama.

You have obviously confused these people with some idealized version of the world that you imagine might have existed -- they were elected and get to do what they want to or are able to do, not what you want them to do. They are all doing pretty much what they campaigned on and what would be expected of them given the circumstances.

"They are all doing pretty much what they campaigned on and what would be expected of them given the circumstances."

You must be joking. Did Obama withdraw all combat troops from Iraq? Did he close Guantanamo? Where are all those "green jobs" he promised? Funding nuclear power plants doesn't exactly qualify. What exactly has he done that was promised during the campaign? From what I can see he's backpedaled or even completely flip-flopped on what he promised.

But it's not just about Obama. The Democrats have been heaping on the rhetoric to seem like an opposition party during the whole Bush term, but when it came time to actually vote against his policies they virtually always caved (with social-security being the only notable exception) and voted along with Bush and the Republicans, whether it was on the funding of the Iraq war, or on the PATRIOT Act, on torture, on habeas corpus, on wiretapping, etc.

It's not some "fantasy" that they were against these things. They were, in word. But when it came time to act on their rhetoric they caved.

Now that the Democrats are in power, they have more of a chance to effect change than ever. But what are they choosing to do with that chance? They're choosing to support and extend Bush's policies (by keeping the Iraq war going, by expanding the war in Afghanistan, by fighting to keep innocent people in jail without trial, by continuing to send prisoners to be tortured in other countries, etc..).

This outrageous behavior is not making them any fans, except among the neocons, who have heaped much praise upon Obama's cabinet nominees, and must be very pleased with what they've accomplished.

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