The Blue State

What is with Dianne Feinstein these days?

A voice that played a pivotal role in outing the actions of Alberto Gonzales in the US Attorney firing scandal is now all of a sudden going the other way.

This week, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) voted in favor of Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey, despite the fact that Mukasey refused to say whether waterboarding was torture.  Now, Feinstein is backing immunity for telecommunications companies that handed over their customers' personal information to the NSA as part of the Administration's warrantless eavesdropping program:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein saidThursday that she favors legal immunity for telecommunicationscompanies that allegedly shared millions of customers' telephone ande-mail messages and records with the government, a position that couldlead to the dismissal of numerous lawsuits pending in San Francisco.

In a statement at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, whichis considering legislation to extend the Bush administration'selectronic surveillance program, Feinstein said the companies shouldnot be "held hostage to costly litigation in what is essentially acomplaint about administration activities."

Why are Feinstein and so many other Democrats scared of a President with a 32% approval rating?  Feinstein should know that there is a primary system -- and progressives will use it to oust certain lawmakers with a habit of being Bush lite.

Democrats could have filibustered Mukasey if they wanted

If I could write the rules, I would make seniority work against lawmakers.  The less years you spend in Congress, the higher committee rank you get.  It would discourage legislators from staying in Washington -- because the longer you stay, the more your power diminishes.

Of course, that is not how things work.  Seniority is an asset that lawmakers use to convince voters to reelect them.  Once reelected, those same lawmakers take their laundry list of promises, set them on fire and protect the status quo of broken government.

As a matter of principle, you cannot alter the status quo without showing some spine.  On Thursday, by failing to filibuster the nomination of Michael Mukasey, Democrats showed no spine, no desire for change and no inability to fulfill a promise made to voters one year ago:

The Senate confirmed Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general Thursday night, approving him despite Democraticcriticism that he had failed to take an unequivocal stance against thetorture of terrorism detainees.

The 53-to-40 vote made Mr. Mukasey, a former federal judge, the thirdperson to head the Justice Department during the tenure of PresidentBush, placing him in charge of an agency that members of both partiessay suffered under the leadership of Alberto Gonzales.

Six Democrats joined 46 Republicans and one independent in approvingthe judge, with his backers praising him as a strong choice to restoremorale at the Justice Department and independently oversee federalprosecutions in the final months of the Bush administration.

Sixty votes are needed to end debate and force a vote on the nomination.  There were not 60 'yea' votes present, meaning that many who even opposed Mukasey voted for cloture.  Where was their spine?  We all know that if it were the Republicans in our shoes, they would have had the courage to block the nomination.

This is why seniority rules hurt democracy -- nothing gets done, and the status quo is protected.

Oh, and by the way, I hope Connecticut voters are happy.  Republicans like him so much that they allotted him five minutes of time to speak on their behalf about Mukasey: