Senate Republicans Cave (So What Else Is New?)

Senate Republicans took a stand on the secret and potentially illegal NSA espionage against American citizens on Tuesday. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted straight down party lines to let the Bush Administration keep on keeping on in spying on Americans. Back in December, committee members Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel joined three Dem committee members to argue that the spying allegations "require immediate inquiry and action by the Senate." But that was then. Three months later, immediate inquiry isn't quite so required. In fact, no inquiry is necessary. Snowe and Hagel caved to the administration. Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts spun the whole thing as the committee's decision "to reject confrontation in favor of accommodation," but the only thing they're accommodating is the White House's ability to do whatever it feels like doing. Oh sure, there's nominal Senate oversight, just like there's already oversight from the FISA court Congress set up almost thirty years ago, but if the Bushies can ignore FISA, why would we ever assume that they wouldn't ignore whatever the Senate sets up this time when it's inconvenient?

Dan Froomkin gives the victory to Dick Cheney, who lobbied the "moderate" Repubs on the committee. I guess reports of his fading influence have been premature. The New York Times editorial page this morning called it "The Death of the Intelligence Panel."

The Senate panel has become so paralyzingly partisan that it could not even manage to do its basic job this week and look into President Bush's warrantless spying on Americans' international e-mail and phone calls.

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It's breathtakingly cynical. Faced with a president who is almost certainly breaking the law, the Senate sets up a panel to watch him do it and calls that control.

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The Republicans' idea of supervision involves saying the White House should get a warrant for spying whenever possible. Currently a warrant is needed, period.

But don't worry. The subcommittee that's now overseeing the NSA spying met today (but they can't talk about it), so it's good to know they're already hard at work. And in USA Today, Pat Roberts explains his own views on why it's entirely unnecessary to investigate the NSA surveillance.

It's the constitutional duty of the executive branch to make the tough decisions necessary to win wars. That's not the case for the legislative branch, which has the luxury of criticizing actions with the benefit of hindsight.

I guess it's nice to know that Pat Roberts doesn't need to make the tough decisions in his job, such as investigating the White House. That would explain why he allows the administration to walk all over him.