The GOP is getting just enough to run on and keep their original game plan (national security) — something which could reap dividends if the Democrats run the campaign figuring that being the anti-Bush and anti-GOP is enough:
Congress on Tuesday was headed toward a split decision on President Bush’s pre-election national security agenda, moving closer to passage of legislation on the handling of terrorism suspects while all but giving up hope of agreeing on a final bill to authorize the administration’s eavesdropping program.
Aside from the non-horse race standpoint, people on both sides of this debate are unlikely to be totally satisfied, not because of a compromise but because much is being left undone. And there is a pervasive sense that undisguised political positioning lurks behind some stances taken by these reps on serious civil liberties issues that require serious thought.
Glenn Greenwald has some views on this…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.