Reply #10: The Democrats who voted for this took a gamble. If they lose...

[Poll_Blind]

...in their bid, there will be no way out of this. What about a filibuster? It was explained to me that the Democratic Leadership traded that off for more time on resolutions to the legislation- which all failed after Bush personally visited the Republican Senators whom the Democrats had counted on to vote with them.

  The filibuster gamble lost.

  Now the only way to turn this into a win and restore the Constitutional Right is to regain a majority and repeal this legislation. It has been explained eloquently by one, and I believe them, that all 12 Democratic Senators (maybe save one) voted for this legislation to buy insurance against Republican attacks on themselves or their colleagues come the November election. It has also been explained, by another, that this should cause us no upset- not one lick, because the legislation would have passed anyway and their "insurance votes" bought some level of defense whereas voting against the torture legislation would have "done nothing useful".

  A gambler sees only the win, not the loss. To gamble the filibuster away on more time to convince Republican senators to vote with us was, and still is, idiocy. Sheer idiocy. In fact, after the many discussion threads I have read here, I find the votes for the legislation pale in comparison to the foolish and ultimately fatal move on the part of Democratic Leadership to relinquish the right to filibuster.

Obligatory Loyalty Oath:I, Poll-Blind, having made the comments above, will still pull the lever like a Good Democrat, for Democrats in November. My criticism of people who I feel have played unthinkingly with some of our most sacred rights as an American in no-way indicates that I would consider voting for anyone else.

  They say we have a two-party system but that's not entirely true. We have two parties, one for each of the major ideologies. In that respect, each ideology only has a single party to "choose" from. I simply don't see any of the other political parties as even remotely viable or, frankly, trustworthy given my experience with them.

  With that in mind, I certainly hope their second gamble pays off. It must not fail. I do not want to think of the consequences if it does not.

PB