Ethics

Mommy, I'm Scared!

By Ed Brayton

Go on, admit it; you're scared. The House of Representatives didn't pass an extension of the law allowing Bush to wiretap American citizens without a warrant and now the terrorists are going to kill us all. John McCain is railing against the Democrats over it - the same John McCain who has spent his entire political life speaking out against torture but voted not to ban waterboarding the other day - and he's now adopted Bush's "evildoer" language.

Because the House didn't vote to extend the earlier "compromise" (read: total surrender by the Democrats), the law now reverts to the old FISA statute and the Patriot Act amendments to that statute. The Bush administration and McCain are telling the American people that this leaves them completely unprotected against the "evildoers"; here's what it really means:

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on February 17, 2008 (boomark / email).