Feingold Drops Effort to Block Patriot Act
Sen. Feingold, who’s rapidly turning into a Fever Swamper because he wants to run for President in 08, has decided to give up his failing fight to filibuster and defeat the Patriot Act.
God only knows why he even attempted this fight, especially after Harry Reid and Dick Durbin announced that they’d be voting for the Patriot Act. I suspect that it’s because he wants to run for president in 08. If Feingold runs, he’ll need the support of the Fever Swamp because he’d get trampled by the Clinton Machine in the primaries.
Thus far, Feingold’s fought against everything that the Kossack crowd hasn’t approved of and is fast becoming the darling of the dominant extremist wing of the Democratic Party.
“What we are seeing is quite simply a capitulation to the intransigent and misleading rhetoric of a White House that sees any effort to protect civil liberties as a sign of weakness,” Feingold said during a floor speech Wednesday.
That’s the talk of an over-the-top Kossack. That isn’t the speech of someone who’ll make a coherent argument against the Patriot Act. It’s all fear-mongering and no facts or examples. As Fred Barnes loves to point out, they don’t cite specific examples of abuses because there aren’t any abuses. There’s only theoretical possibilities of how the law might be abused.
That won’t cut it with many people in wartime.
But any attempt to change the legislation would face an uphill battle, according to Majority Leader Bill Frist. “The outcome here is absolutely predetermined,” the Tennessee Republican said, expressing frustration with the delay. “It’s going to pass with overwhelming support.”
In the end, common sense trumps hysteria. This time, it beats it overwhelmingly.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing
February 16th, 2006 at 7:29 am
The Patriot Act is more useful to Feingold than letting it lapse would be: as long as it’s in force he can run against it.