The Dems and Truthiness in the FISA Debate

by mcjoan, Daily Kos

Sat Jul 05, 2008 at 04:15:05 PM PDT

The Democratic establishment is out in full force now, providing
justification for the crappy FISA Amendments Act that's about to become law.
While they haven't learned how to fight like Republicans (who have redefined
"compromise" to mean "capitulation") they've learned how to
lie like them.

Soderberg: “We now know that they were not lawful. But the companies that followed
those directives are not the ones to blame for that abuse of
presidential power.”

I would really like to know where people like Soderberg get the idea that
the U.S. President has the power to "order" private citizens to do
anything, let alone to break the law, as even she admits happened here. I'm asking this literally: how did this warped and distinctly
un-American mentality get implanted into our public discourse -- that the
President can give "orders" to private citizens that must be complied
with? Soderberg views the President as a monarch -- someone who can issue
"orders" that must be obeyed, even when, as she acknowledges, the
"orders" are illegal.

That just isn't how our country works and it never was. We don't have a King
who can order people to break the law.