How low can you go?

Glenn Greenwald takes a break from his book tour long enough to break the news that a new low has been reached by Congress in its on-going abdication of its oversight responsibilities. He makes the point that its not just Arlen Specter, the bill's author, who deserves our scorn. "where are all the great, heroic Senate Democrats who are standing up to the administration on these issues in a way that Specter isn't?" Sadly for all of us, Glenn answers his own question thusly: "They don't exist".

Observing and commenting on the behavior of Arlen Specter is one of the most unpleasant obligations a person can have, but for anyone following the NSA eavesdropping scandal specifically, and the Bush administration's abuses of executive power generally, it is a necessary evil. The principal reason that the Bush administration has been able to impose its radical theories of lawbreaking on the country is because Congress, with an unseemly eagerness, has permitted itself to be humiliated over and over by an administration which does not hide its contempt for the notion that Congress has any role to play in limiting and checking the executive branch. And few people have more vividly illustrated that institutional debasement than Arlen Specter, who, along with Pat Roberts, has done more than anyone else to ensure that Congress completely relinquishes its constitutional powers to the President.

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Congressional abdication is so uniquely damaging because the Founders assumed that Congress would naturally and instinctively resist encroachments by the executive, and the resulting institutional tension -- the inevitable struggle for power between the branches -- is what would preserve governmental balance and prevent true abuses of power. But for the last five years, Congress has done the opposite of what the Founders envisioned. They have meekly submitted to the almost total elimination of their role in our Government and have quietly accepted consolidation of their powers in the President.

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A bill proposed yesterday by Arlen Specter to resolve the NSA scandal -- literally his fifth or sixth proposed bill on this subject in the last few months -- would drag the Congress to a new low of debasement. According to The Washington Post, Specter has introduced a bill "that would give President Bush the option of seeking a warrant from a special court for an electronic surveillance program such as the one being conducted by the National Security Agency." This proposal is the very opposite of everything Specter has saying for the last several months:

Specter's approach modifies his earlier position that the NSA eavesdropping program, which targets international telephone calls and e-mails in which one party is suspected of links to terrorists, must be subject to supervision by the secret court set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

A law which makes it "an option" -- rather than a requirement -- for the Government to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping is about as meaningless of a law as can be imagined.

But that complete change of heart by Specter is not even nearly the most corrupt part of his proposed bill. For pure corruption and constitutional abdication, nothing could match this:

Another part of the Specter bill would grant blanket amnesty to anyone who authorized warrantless surveillance under presidential authority, a provision that seems to ensure that no one would be held criminally liable if the current program is found illegal under present law.

The idea that the President's allies in Congress would enact legislation which expressly shields government officials, including the President, from criminal liability for past lawbreaking is so reprehensible that it is difficult to describe. To my knowledge, none of the other proposed bills -- including those from the most loyal Bush followers in the Senate -- contained this protective provision. And without knowing anywhere near as much as I would need to know in order to form a definitive opinion, the legality of this provision seems questionable at best. It's really the equivalent of a pardon, a power which the Constitutional preserves for the President. Can Congress act as a court and simply exonerate citizens from criminal conduct?

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Excess attention on Specter's role in all of this should be avoided. As easy -- and as justifiable -- as it is to express contempt for Specter's inevitable, craven submission to the dictates of the Bush administration, it is also indisputably true that no Senator other than Russ Feingold has done more than Specter to keep the issues of the president's lawbreaking in the news and to prevent a quick sweeping under the rug by the administration of this scandal. Specter's constant complaints have at least kept reporters talking about these issues. If one wants to really attack Specter, one should first answer this question -- where are all the great, heroic Senate Democrats who are standing up to the administration on these issues in a way that Specter isn't? They don't exist. While Specter does nothing more than make some noise, at least he has been doing that.

And while Specter always falls obediently into line with the administration in the end, most Senators, of both parties, begin from that position, particularly with regard to matters of national security and executive power. Specter is the most vivid illustration of Congressional debasement, but he is hardly the only example. Anyone with doubts about that should go and review how the Democrats reacted to Sen. Feingold's introduction of an extremely mild resolution to simply censure the President for breaking the law.

Update:

Cafferty: Anyone involved in the current secret NSA spying program without a court order would be given blanket Amnesty. Very courageous Senator Specter. Why would they need amnesty if what they are doing is legal? It boggles what's left of my mind.