In a very Bush-like gesture, Senator Majority leader Harry Reid will do something unheard of: he will override Chris Dodd's right to put a "hold" on the FISA bill, Glenn Greenwald writes today.
Reid has never dishonored a "hold" before from his own caucus, and virtually never dishonors "holds" even when placed by the most far-right Republicans Senators. It seemed inconceivable that he would simply refuse to recognize a "hold" by one of the Senate's most senior members on a bill of this importance, and the media accounts seemed vague on that score.
Then Greenwald discovered that Reid -- like so many of his Democratic colleagues -- is simply ignoring voters. A call to Reid's office was treated with disdain.
There is a reason that the Democratic Congress has been as accommodating to the Bush agenda, if not more so, than even the GOP Congress led by Bill Frist and Denny Hastert. It is because that is what their leadership, repeatedly, chooses to do.
Right. But why? Why, after Democratic voters worked hard to give their party a majority in 2006, is the party leadership determined to betray them? We all have tentative answers to that question, but no one knows for sure. We do know this: we're fed to the teeth with autocratic, secretive and unproductive government. It's no more forgivable in the Democratic leadership than in anyone else.
