A Party of Eunuchs

Tom Maertens

It’s ten months since the Democrats took over Congress, and our worst fears have been confirmed: the Democratic Party is a paper tiger.

Case in point: It’s only October and already the Democrats are preparing for the big cave on FISA – despite Nancy Pelosi’s commitment, supported by others in the party, to revamp FISA as soon as Congress reconvened.

This is just one more failure to halt the Bush administration’s assault on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Look at the situation. As a result of one terrorist event — 9/11 — the Bush administration has:

-- Denied an individual’s rights to habeas corpus, trial by impartial jury, legal counsel, knowledge of evidence

-- Supported use of coerced and hearsay testimony

-- Employed enforced disappearance and secret detention

-- Approved use of torture and other mistreatment

-- Claimed the right to ignore laws in signing statements

-- Conducted warrantless searches and wiretaps

-- Issued a gag order on the 45,000 National Security Letters per year the FBI has issued recently – a ploy to protect an anti-Constitutional process that by-passes search warrants

-- Instituted the secret Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), including no-fly lists assembled in secret

-- Approved involvement by CIA’s National Clandestine Service and DOD’s Counterintelligence Field Activity in domestic spying. Predictably, they immediately set about spying on domestic anti-war groups, such as Greenpeace, the Quakers, Catholic Workers, and 150 more groups in their TALON database.

Is there any chance that the Democrats will actually protect our civil liberties? Why aren’t the Dems doing anything to restore Habeas Corpus? The first article of the Military Commissions Act clearly puts every American at risk of being incarcerated as Jose Padilla was, three and a half years in solitary confinement with no legal rights.

Why haven’t the Democrats stopped the use of torture? The Office of Legal Counsel has defined torture out of existence so that George Bush can stand in front of the cameras and intone the big lie. Sophistries don’t change reality.

What happened to the Democrats’ determination to reverse direction in Iraq? Now they are claiming they don’t have the votes, adding deception to cowardice. Everyone knows that all money bills originate in the House. Pusillanimous is not the same a powerless, although it leads to the same result.

Why did Nancy Pelosi yank the rug out from under the Murta (et al) plan to make Bush pay for his war? Do the Dems think they will be better off in the future if they are faced with raising taxes with a Dem in the White House (as in ’93). Is nobody smart enough to hang the albatross around Bush’s neck for his ‘borrow-and-spend’ policies? Public opinion is so negative on Bush’s war, that only the faintest of hearts could be intimidated by Republican demagoguery.

Bush and the Grover Norquists of the world are trying to destroy the federal government so it can be flushed down the drain, in Norquist’s memorable phrase. The mechanism they seized upon is to bankrupt the Treasury thru tax-cuts and spending increases. The result is $3 trillion in additional debt so far, all of which will have to be paid back by future generations. Instead of opposing this raid on the public finances, the Democrats seen to have settled on a policy of playing fiscal chicken with the Republicans. Do the Dems believe that the American people can’t figure this out it they explain it? Who is likely to be left holding the bag on this?

The Neocons are whipping up another war, and the Bush administration is preparing for another pre-emptive attack, this time against Iran. What are the Democrats doing to stop it? They signed up to the Kyl-Lieberman resolution which juxtaposes the words Iran and military means in the same memo. When Bush latches on to this resolution to attack Iran, the capitulationists will all whine that they were misled; that’s not what we meant. Pelosi even removed a provision from a recent war-funding bill that would have required Bush to get permission from Congress before launching any attack on Iran.

Their leading presidential candidates have all joined the amen chorus. This is clearly about defending Israel, and all of them seem fully prepared to compromise U.S. interests in order to placate the American wing of Likud and the dangerously nutty Christian Zionists with their delusions of being wafted out of their pajamas.

Steven Bradbury of the Justice Dept told Congress that President has the authority to order domestic assassinations of terrorist suspects. Do the Dems agree the there are no restrictions on the President’s Commander-in-Chief powers? Do the Democrats object to government death squads run by Bush and Cheney? Can they think of other governments that have engaged in assassinating “suspects” where the results have been let’s say problematic?

For six years, the Republican Congress was a wholly owned subsidiary of the White House, manned by the most corrupt, fawning toadies the GOP has ever placed in positions of authority. If we get attacked again by terrorists, Bush and the Republicans, aided by militarists like Rudy Giuliani, will begin agitating loudly to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law. Will the Democrats go along with the Republican puppets in Congress in copying the Reichstag capitulation of 1933, and vote themselves out of power?

I saw a sign recently that said “Spinelessness is better than evil.” No one doubts that the Republicans would sell the country out in a heartbeat for campaign contributions, public office, or any other self-interested reason. Does that mean we should support the shameful, pusillanimous Democrats?

Is there any principle that they support? Is there anything that they are willing to fight for? What process is it that turns Democratic legislators into sniveling, whimpering cowards?

Their strategy, to the extent they have one, could be labeled ‘toothless posturing,’ a series of hollow threats. This is supposed to reassure their base that they are doing something on behalf of the voters, and simultaneously strike fear into the hearts of Republicans. Except that Reid and Pelosi immediately collapse into a quivering heap as soon as some Republican accuses them of being soft on terrorism.

Affiliated with this strategy is the corollary principal of pre-emptive capitulation which they argue is being pragmatic in order not to jeopardize their chances in ’08. Jeopardize what? The Democrats have 70% of the population behind them on Iraq, and more than 90% of Democrats. How many votes do they need to take action? If they had 55 votes in the Senate, would they grow spines? Or would it take 65 votes? Is there in fact any such point?

The sad reality is that this is a party of craven eunuchs. They are afraid to take on the most unpopular president in U.S. history over a disastrous war, over his assault on the Constitution, and his raid on the Treasury. No wonder opinion polls show respect for Congress in the teens.

With few exceptions (Russ Feingold, Henry Waxman, John Conyers, Murta, a handful of others) the Democrats are like whipped puppies, cringing and cowering with their tales between legs. Please, please, don’t hurt me anymore. They apparently think that if they assume an abjectly submissive posture, the Republicans won’t hit them again.

That’s how they get manipulated into condemning a MoveOn.org ad, which (while not the cleverest copy ever written) is certainly right in pointing out that Petraeus is a political general lending his credibility to an administration that has none left on Iraq. But then, this is a Democratic party that won’t hesitate to eat its young if that will help avoid the impression it has any principles.