Brent Budowsky - Democrats Surrender

From The Hill’s Pundits Blog:

Democrats Surrender on Torture

By Brent Budowsky

Mr. Smith has left Washington and Mr. Orwell has arrived…

Others and I were privately advocating a filibuster against Mukasey’s attorney general confirmation bid, and would have needed 41 votes to prevail. At a minimum the filibuster could have forced Bush to accept a waterboarding and torture ban as a condition of confirmation.

Democrats had 40 votes against confirmation last night plus the four presidential candidates who did not vote. Democrats had 43 or 44 “no” votes adding the presidential candidates and, had these senators had the conviction to filibuster, would have won…

Of course, by late last night, the BBC World Service was correctly broadcasting to the world that the Senate had confirmed Mukasey with all of the objections to his position on torture that were stated, but surrendered, yet again, by Democrats…

he Senate’s contribution to our troops on Veterans Day is to create more harm for them, as messages are beamed to the world, that even the Democratic Senate cannot make a stand against torture, even when 70 percent of America agrees, even when they had the votes to win…

Yesterday was a new low for Democrats, who surrendered the fight they would have won and were morally obligated to make, on torture, and for Lieberman, who attacks Democrats for being too strong, at the exact moment of their weakest of many surrenders.

Mr. Smith has left Washington, George Orwell has arrived, and 70 percent of the nation must now consider what to do, with Washington in such overwhelming disrepute directed at both sides of the aisle.

Budowsky serves on the Advisory Council of the Intelligence Summit and is a contributing editor to Fighting Dems News Service. He handled intelligence issues for Sen. Lloyd Bentsen when the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was originally passed, and was legislative director to Bill Alexander, then the chief deputy whip of the House. He can be read on The Hill’s Pundits Blog and reached at brentbbi@webtv.net.

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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

The excerpt above is posted with the full knowledge and permission, even encouragement, of the author, who wants his essays to be read by as many people as possible.

Greg Sargent, writing at TPM Election Central, says that the Mukasey vote was a tradeoff for getting the military funding bill passed:

"… they wanted to be able to argue that they had sent a bill to the President funding the military, if not the war itself. The idea was that doing this would allow them to protect themselves in the days ahead when the battle over Iraq funding heats up and Republicans inevitably charge that Dems are refusing to fund the troops…"

What's the most pitiful about this excuse, if it's true, is that it gives over almost complete power for running the country to the right-wing media machine. That machine even decides who can be the Democratic candidate for president, or at least who can NOT be.

If you live in or near Chicago, you can help get a new effort started to counter that machine by attending an organizational meeting on November 16 at the headquarters of In These Times.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com