The NSA Scandal and Public Opinion Myths

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http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/|The NSA Scandal and public opinion myths>

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...a substantial number of Democrats are flirting heavily with -- if they have not already outright embraced -- the notion that they ought to back away from this scandal, focus on legislative "revisions" to FISA in order to render retroactively legal the Administration’s patently (and proudly) lawless behavior, plead with the Administration to accept some oversight going forward, and then forget about the whole sordid affair. Put another way, many Democrats are slowly slouching towards the path they almost always end up taking – that is, not challenge the Administration due to three things: fear, fear and fear. Specifically, they are afraid that standing firm will backfire politically, even though all available facts suggest that this fear is wholly unfounded.

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What is so simultaneously bewildering and frustrating about the tentative and fearful posture assumed by so many Democrats with regard to this scandal is that the fears are based on nothing but pure fantasy and myth. This notion that Democrats cannot pursue this scandal because they will look weak on national security or be painted as wanting to "hang up on Osama" is completely negated by every relevant fact.

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...I am genuinely amazed that the percentage of people who believe that Bush broke the law is so high, because Democrats have barely even made this case to the public. The number of prominent Democrats who have come before the cameras and stated unequivocally and unapologetically that George Bush broke the law can be counted on one hand. Americans have almost come to this conclusion on their own. Imagine what these numbers would be if Democrats were acting in unison and were taking a firm and principled stance against the Administration’s law-breaking, not just with regard to eavesdropping but with regard to the Administration's views of the Executive power of law-breaking.

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The central premise of conventional political wisdom is that Democrats are chronic losers whose real views are overwhelmingly rejected by most Americans. As a result, they can’t say what they really believe because what they really believe is embraced only by a handful of freaks and outcasts on the coasts and the "heartland" is repulsed by what they believe. As a result, if they want to win elections, they have to dress up what they think in much more moderate and Republican-accommodating language, constantly genuflecting to basic Republican premises but only nitpicking on the corners, because otherwise, normal Americans will continue to be repelled by their angry, radical agenda.

How many times do we hear that - from the media, from pundits, in the blogosphere, even from Democratic consultants? If there is such a thing as conventional wisdom, it’s that.

What is so unbelievable about this world-view is that it is so plainly predicated on falsehoods, on factually false premises. Let’s use the war in Iraq as an example. According to this prevailing wisdom, anyone who opposes the war on Iraq, who thinks it’s a mistake, who doesn’t pay homage to the President’s "go-on-offense-against-the-terrorist" routine when it comes to Iraq, is a pacifistic, out-of-the-mainstream loser who is an embarrassment to the Democrats and is the type of person who has to be repudiated and hidden if the Democrats have any hope of winning every again.
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[mdmc]

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