http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/opinion/07tue1.html

NYT Editorial - 08/07/07

The Fear of Fear Itself

It was appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress — now led by Democrats — caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush’s powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of national security, but the only security at play was their job security.

There was plenty of bad behavior. Republicans marched in mindless lockstep with the president. There was double-dealing by the White House. The director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, crossed the line from being a steward of this nation’s security to acting as a White House political operative.

But mostly, the spectacle left us wondering what the Democrats — especially their feckless Senate leaders — plan to do with their majority in Congress if they are too scared of Republican campaign ads to use it to protect the Constitution and restrain an out-of-control president.

The New York Times is speaking for all Democrats, and a majority of Americans, when yet another lead editorial questions the patriotism of the Democratic “Leadership” at this crucial point in our history. Protecting the Constitution is the only sworn duty and responsibility of our elected representatives in Congress, and after six years of absolutely no oversight of this runaway madman, that was the mandate of American voters in 2006: fulfill your sworn duty to our Republic!

At its heart, the Constitution protects Americans from abuses by their own government, and our “leaders” are actually doing the reverse – they are protecting the current anti-Constitutional president, and his neoconservative cabal, from the Constitution. Much worse, they are setting the stage for future “unitary Executive” proponents (from either Party) to further isolate the Office of the President, and the Executive Branch, from Congressional oversight.

There can be no excuse, no viable partisan political strategy, and not one single phony claim of “centrism,” which justifies the cowardice of Pelosi and Reid, or the rest of the DINOs who have enabled this criminal president time, and time again. They are not only failing miserably at their sworn duty to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” but they are making a mockery of our representative system of democracy.

The only remedy is to replace these Democrats-in-name-only, with patriotic Democratic Representatives who care more about the Constitution, than their own professional political futures. That may mean that we need to elect politically inexperienced Democrats, but that might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. In any event, we need to put the current group of slackers on notice that we are not going to support them, in their gross failure to support us: the American Democratic Voters.