What the hell is wrong with Yarmuth?

[johnlal]

Yarmuth voted with the Republicans today to amend the FISA law and to allow retroactive immunity for the telecom companies. This is one of a handful of disappointments from this guy. I was really happy to see the Democratic gains from the 2006 elections, but the Democratic majority, John included, have disappointed. How in the world could he have even thought it was OK to sell out our privacy like that? Does he really think we want to live in a Soviet-style country where the government is likely to be spying on us at any given moment?

This has really been a blow to me. I had such great hopes for John, and I was waiting for him to grow into his job. It doesn't take long to forget who put you in office.

[BridgeTheGap]

1. Agreed. I can't understand why anyone would go along with this shit.

The repubs have demonstrated time and again that they will use whatever powers they get AGAINST DEMOCRATS - i.e. using the Dept. of Homeland Security to track down the Texas legislators who left the state trying prevent some nasty gerrymandering.

[johnlal]

2. I got a letter back from him a couple days ago

He says that the media is misreporting what the bill is actually about. He says that he really, really, really didn't want telecom immunity in the bill, but he had to swallow it because he wanted to pass this great bill.
I guess he thinks we're all stupid.

[groovedaddy]

3. Possibly, he is following this guy's line of reasoning:

(from the NY Times)
I was No. 8 on Richard Nixon’s “enemies list” — a strange assemblage of 20 people who had incurred the White House’s wrath because they had disagreed with administration policy. As the presidential counsel John Dean explained it in 1971, the list was part of a plan to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” My guess is that I earned this dubious distinction because of my opposition to the Vietnam War, though no one ever said for sure.

Because I rejected the Nixon administration’s use of national security as a pretext for broad assertions of unchecked executive power, I became engaged with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when it was proposed in the early 1970s. And because I reject the Bush administration’s equally extreme assertions of executive power at the expense of civil liberties, I have been engaged in trying to improve the current legislation.

The compromise legislation that will come to the Senate floor this week is not the legislation that I would have liked to see, but I disagree with those who suggest that senators are giving in by backing this bill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/opinion/08halperin.html?th&emc=th

[loyalkydem]

4. I rather have Yarmouth

than Anne Northup. Consider the alternative.