Enough. Just enough already. No more good partisan soldier boy - when Harry Reid, Democratic Minority Leader - the most important elected Democratic official in the country says "we want to do this" to a bill that guts habeas corpus and legalizes torture, I'm off this bloody train. Harry Reid can use "Water Board Bridge" to cross "Magna Carta river" on his own, with whatever partisan hacks feel that their loyalty to The Party outweighs the value of Habeas Corpus.

I'm being told, "oh when we win, we'll fix it". Well, first of all (and I'll discuss this later) while I expect the Dems to do well in this election and retake the House, this specific action is reducing their chances to get a decent majority. And with a small majority in the Senate and the House why would we believe the Democrats would revisit a bill that the Democratic Minority Leader "wants to do"? If you intend to reverse a bill, you set up a rhetorical case for it, you don't praise it.

Now let's say that 80% of Democratic Senators vote against the bill, and are reliable votes when it matters (this is the great amusement of all this. Voting against a bill you know is going to pass anyway is often a pandering act and doesn't mean any given senator would be against it if their vote mattered) - what margin are the Democrats going to have in the Senate and House? Enough to overcome 20% against them within their own party? Enough to overcome a filibuster if the Republicans turn out to have enough discipline and guts to actually do a filibuster, unlike Democrats?

No, if this bill passes, it isn't being repealed by Democrats. First of all, the Senate Democratic leadership doesn't want to repeal it. Second, Democrats won't have a working majority on the issue even if they wanted to use it.

Loyalty is the cardinal virtue in politics and there is a lot of pressure being applied for people to swallow, not spit, on this one.

More After the Break

The Party thinks that if they vote against this bill then the "Jack Bauer voters" who think torture is great will vote against them. And, frankly, from the rhetoric coming from Harry Reid, I have to assume that he's actually pro-torture and anti-habeas corpus. That's what he's saying, that's what his actions over the years have indicated, and I'm a big believer that when someone tells you who they are, you should listen. I've been ignoring that rule with Reid for a while, giving him some benefit of the doubt "not a liberal, but not an unprincipled conservative". Enough - he couldn't be bothered to do anything about Alito, not to even pretend to fight Mr. "Signing Statements" himself, and he "wants to do this". Ok Harry, I believe you. Making Bill Frist angry once with your secret sessions stunt does not give you a lifetime free pass. And as far as I'm concerned, your benefit-of-the-doubt "get out of jail free" card is hereby revoked. From now on you get evaluated exactly on what you do and say, with no more benefit of the doubt, because with "we want to do this" you've just pissed away what little you had left.

And as usual with Democratic politicians you've demonstrated a continued ability to try and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Mid term elections are base driven elections. One major reason that Democrats are doing well is because Republicans are demoralized, and Democrats are frothing mad. But this is a core issue for the base. As Digby put it, this is the Democratic base's abortion/low taxes all wrapped into one.

Then there's the continued inability to read polls. There's no clear evidence a majority of Americans are for torture, polls are split on the issue (see this google search), with some showing a majority for, and others showing a majority against, depending on how the questions were asked. Which is to say - Americans can be convinced on this issue, views are not set in stone. With leadership, this is a good fight. (And by leadership I simply mean having every Democrat repeat the following "Torture is UnAmerican. The Founders of this country fought and died for certain rights, and by God, they aren't ending on my watch.")

Rinse. Wash. Repeat. Get your majority in both Houses.

Democrats may squeak out a "victory", and lord knows Pelosi isn't stupid enough, or unprincipled enough to be getting Reid's back on this. And I encourage readers to support Democratic candidates who have some principles, and not give up - get a Democratic majority, and retake the party. But this support for torture isn't just wrong, it's a mistake.

Even if it wasn't a mistake in electoral terms I'd still argue Democrats should oppose it. But this continued inability to recognize good politics, or how to sell any policy that is even about evenly split is pathetic, and symptomatic of why Democrats don't control a single branch of government.

And inability to stand up here bodes very badly for the next nomination to the Supreme court. Even with a razor thin majority, does anyone actually see Democrats managing to get enough votes to stop a Bush appointee? Even Myers wasn't stopped by Democrats, she was stopped by Republicans (an example of the old maxim that in a one party state it is factions within the party which actually account for whatever little opposition there is.)

If Harry Reid will give in on values as fundamental as torture and Habeas Corpus, why should we swallow hard and believe he'll put up a fight on giving Republicans a 5 member majority on the Supreme Court?

I can't think of one good reason to believe he will. If Samuel "the president can interpret the law however he feels like through signing statements" Alito wasn't bad enough for Harry to even try to filibuster, who could be? If losing Habeas Corpus isn't worth a filibuster, (heck what am I talking about, he doesn't even oppose it, he wants to gut Habeas Corpus) what issue would warrant one?

If there's a bridge too far for Harry I don't know what it might be. Certainly it's far past where I draw the line.

So sorry Harry, but on this one, I ain't swallowing, I'm spitting.