"The Democrats are implicated in every single crime with which they would charge the members of the administration."

as long as i'm still hyperventilating about the passage of the fisa legislation and barely able to even think coherently, i'll let arthur speak for me...

Recently, there was much commotion on the progressive blogs, as the liberals breathlessly anticipated the possible impeachment of Gonzales. A voluminous record supports the immediate start of impeachment hearings for Bush and Cheney, which is where one would and must start if one were serious about stopping even one of these continuing crimes, and if the Democrats genuinely wanted to forestall an attack on Iran. But, contend many progressives, if we start with Gonzales, we can then begin to establish a record that will make the impeachment of Bush and Cheney more likely.

Passage of this FISA legislation, which approves and expands the unconstitutional and criminal acts already engaged in by the administration, turns any future effort to impeach Gonzales into intellectual hash. To approve this legislation and to simultaneously push for the impeachment of Gonzales represents the triumph of utter incoherence. The Democrats may have feared Republican attacks on any impeachment effort, and that the Republicans would accuse them of acting only out of partisan motives, devoid of any concern for political principle whatsoever. The Democrats themselves have now handed the Republicans conclusive proof that the Republican attacks would be entirely correct. If the Democrats were actually concerned about Gonzales' eminently impeachable actions, this legislation would have been laughed off the Hill.

But for the reasons set forth above (and a full case would fill many volumes), the Democrats are not going to impeach any of these criminals, barring events entirely unforeseeable at present. And they will not for one overwhelmingly significant and determinative reason: always with regard to the underlying principles, and frequently with regard to the specifics, the Democrats are implicated in every single crime with which they would charge the members of the administration. The Republicans' crimes are their crimes.

arthur simply does not comprehend how progressive bloggers can possibly be surprised at the complicity of our congressional democrats...

[I]n terms of the most critical fundamental principles, there is no difference whatsoever between the Republicans and the Democrats as institutions of power in the U.S. political system as it has developed over the last hundred years.

[...]

[T]hey both agree that the government must be empowered to do whatever it wants, with no constraints at all, even if those constraints are imposed by the Constitution itself.

[...]

[T]he progressives' central articles of religious faith: The Democrats aren't really like this, not in their heart of hearts. The Democrats don't actually favor a repressive, authoritarian state. The Democrats are good, and they want liberty and peace for everyone, everywhere, for eternity, hallelujah and amen.

People who continue to believe this have evicted themselves from serious political debate, and they have willingly made themselves slaves to their enthusiastically embraced self-delusions. They confess a comprehensive ignorance of history, a stunning inability to understand the political developments of the last century, and a desire to place the story they have chosen, primarily because it flatters their own false sense of vanity and self-worth, above every relevant fact.

[...]

What is true in foreign policy is also true in domestic policy. The Republicans and the Democrats both advance the growth of the corporatist state, as they have for the last century -- a state where key and hugely influential financial interests ally themselves with government power (including perhaps most significantly the military-industrial-congressional complex). As it expands and becomes increasingly corrupt, the corporatist state is also an authoritarian state: individual rights give way more and more to state power, in the form of proliferating laws, regulations, edicts, wiretapping and surveillance.

i have seriously wanted to believe that democrats could make a difference, but i was sadly mistaken... from the beginning of the congressional session in january, it's become horrifically clear that, when it comes to truly upholding our united states constitution, there is no daylight whatsover between the two parties... for both of them, it's all about money and power...

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