The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. . . . It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. . . . A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. - Federalist 51

Surely there are few Administrations in history that best demonstrate the need for these auxiliary precautions than the Bush Administration.

In writing approvingly of the FISA Amendment, Orin Kerr ignores these concerns:

Rudy Giuliani, the latest practitioner:

In response to questions, they said would not support raising the gasoline tax to finance spending on the nation’s roads and bridges in response to the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis this week. Mr. Giuliani got into a terse exchange with his questioner, David Yepsen, a political columnist for The Des Moines Register, when Mr. Yepsen tried to ask him about such a tax.

‘“David, there’s an assumption in your question that is not necessarily correct, sort of the Democratic, liberal assumption, ‘I need money; I raise taxes,’ ” Mr. Giuliani said.

“Then what are you going to cut, sir,” Mr. Yepsen responded. Mr. Giuliani said that as mayor of New York, he had increased revenue to pay for bridge and road repair by cutting taxes, thereby jolting the economy, and said he would do the same thing as president. The city’s coffers in that period were flush largely with revenues produced by the stock market boom of the late 1990s.

Here's a hint Rudy, your tax cut did not cause the stock market to boom in the 1990s. The President was one William Jefferson Clinton, and Clinton did this to boost the economy:

TPM does a very good interview with Ron Fournier of the AP on the "lobbyist" issue that became the headline of yesterday's YKos Presidential Forum:

As Fournier suggests, the way the issue was portrayed in the forum was, to say the least artificial. Blasting lobbyists while taking money from state lobbyists and the spouses of lobbyists, as Obama does, or from certain principals like hedge fund managers, as Edwards does, is certainly disingenuous. The question is how come that does not make most stories? To Fournier's great credit, it did make his:

Congress' lamenting the heat and their need for a vacation leaves me cold.

"It's hot, it's humid, people are tired and ready to go home," says Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) as he sucks on a cigarette at the Cantina Marina event. "Most of America wants us to go home. It's like this every summer."

But it's not every summer that lawmakers take to cots in the Senate to dramatize an all-night debate over the Iraq war. Nor is it every summer that angry Republicans march off the House floor in the wee hours to protest a parliamentary maneuver by Democrats.

It's hot everywhere. In the past ten days I've been in Denver, Omaha and Chicago. I'm tired of 95 degree humid weather too, but I didn't let it affect my work.

The Democrats caved on FISA and who knows what else -- we'll probably have to wait until the fine print of the passed bills with last minute amendments becomes available to see what they really did.

Why? Because Bush said he'd exercise his unitary power to deny them a recess and force them to cancel or rebook vacation plans?

More...

I'm at Midway airport in Chicago, waiting for my flight home from Yearly Kos.

Here's something I've never seen before: Rocking chairs.

I'm sitting in a very comfortable hand-painted rocking chair, thoughtfully placed next to a power outlet, with Wi-Fi, in the middle of concurse A between two moving runways. What a stress-free way to blog. My gate is within eye distance. I could blog like this for hours.

Cheers for Midway. More like this please.

If you haven't read Markos' closing remarks last night, you can read them (or watch him deliver them) here.

Shorter version: "I'm just a guy who built a website. You did the rest."

And this I love: Gina Cooper, Yearly Kos' executive director has announced that next year it won't be called Yearly Kos 3 but Netroots Nation.

Glenn Greenwald interviewed Senator Chris Dodd (my guy in the Presidential sweepstakes) about the FISA Capitualtion:

GG: Can you describe what you think it is that motivated 16 of your colleagues in the Democratic caucus to vote in favor of this bill?

CD: No, I really can't . . . We had caucuses during the day, so everyone knew what was there. You had a vote at 10:00 at night, people say I didn't know what was there, then normally I can understand, but we had a caucus during the day. There was a lot of conversation about it.

GG: So this wasn't a Patriot Act case where people can claim ignorance because there was a rushed vote? There was a careful assessment of what the terms in this statute were?

CD: Absolutely. In fact, even during the vote, Carl Levin was sitting there, and Carl said: "look, I want everyone to read this" . . . . Most people know about the Gonzales references and the 180 days -- there is also a section, as Carl pointed out, that basically says that if they can prove reasonably that you're out of the country -- not that you're not a citizen, just out of the country [then they can eavesdrop on you] . . . .

But I wish I had a better explanation. Normally after that, we would be in session Monday or Tuesday, around today, people would be talking about it. So I'm a little stunned, and grasping for some answer here. So I really don't know. . . .

GG: There is this gap in FISA, which everyone, even Russ Feingold, says needs to be filled, which is that if there is a foreign-to-foreign conversation which happens to be routed through the U.S., it requires a warrant -- so why not just say "OK, we fixed this gap and here's our bill and if you veto it, and there's a terrorist attack, then it's your responsibility"?

CD: Hello? Sounds pretty reasonable to me. But part of what this comes down to is that too many people in public life are not secure enough in their own beliefs -- feel vulnerable to attacks by people who will attack you -- and feel unwilling or unable to respond to them with clarity and conviction. And if you lack that clarity and conviction, and if you haven't been through this in the past, then you're likely to be a little weaker in the legs.

Dodd is a "tough guy." Jim Webb is a wimp.

In a almost completely inane editorial, the Washington Post Editorial Board demonstrated how useless it is in this passage:

Meanwhile, Democrats in both chambers chose to spend countless hours mired in a fruitless effort to compel an "end" to the war in Iraq.

Devoting "countless hours" to the most important issue the country faces is worthy of ridicule for the Washington Post Editorial Board. Forget what your view is on the issue, how is it possible that devoting countless hours to it could be a bad thing? Only in the twisted mind of a Fred Hiatt could the efforts spent on Iraq be something to criticize.

Yesterday, I discussed again the problem of Netroots focus and the deterioration into being concerned only with electoral politics and not enough with issues. In the dailykos diaries, Eugene writes a good piece discussing the dilemma. But I was struck by this comment from Daily Kos Contributing Editor Meteor Blades:

I think one aspect of the disconnect is not knowing how to exert whatever clout we have as effectively in the majority as in opposition. And this will, I believe, become more obvious, and perhaps worse if and when a Dem wins the White House. The key, in my view, is for us to act as a perpetual opposition, within the party as well as a scourge against the Republicans.

This is where Markos and I diverge. He has always said ours isn't an ideological fight, but rather an effort to install Democrats who themselves fight. In truth, it is an ideological battle, as the FISA vote and the discussion around Obama's foreign policy speech and statements have proved, just to point out two examples of many.

I have always believed, and will continue to believe, that the ideological fight must run in tandem with the fight to elected the best possible candidates to wield electoral power, while recognizing that those best will be hampered by "establishment values" of the party in which most of them reside - define those values how you will. For me, however, the real fight, the long-term fight, the paradigm-shifting fight, lies outside party politics.

This is a great comment but I disagree with Meteor Blades' conclusion that the fight lies outside party politics. I think it lies in concentrating on the issues but also concentrating on INTRA-party politics and primaries. I'll explain on the flip.

TPM has the moment that is getting the most coverage from the YKos Presidential Forum.

Personally, I am skeptical about how important this issue is. I have been hearing about this stuff forever. But an entertaining exchange.

Update [2007-8-5 1:16:23 by Big Tent Democrat]: I do want to underscore a point I made in the Live Blog of the forum, having Matt Bai moderate was a grievous mistake. As Jane Hamsher states, and as a review of the forum and the coverage indicates, Bai's ego overran the forum and he clearly decided it would be the Matt Bai Forum, not the YKos Forum. The forum was pedestrianly okay, I thought the opening questions by mcjoan were excellent, but it was not a Blogger Presidential Forum imo.

I'm going to bed. What a depressing day.

This is an Open Thread.

On C-Span.

Intelligence Chairman Reyes is giving a pathetic speech to support the bill.

Republican argument? President Bush wants it. And the kicker, the Repoublican argues that EVEN THOUGH the Dems are capitulating today, they still are emboldening the terrorisits because they did not immediately cave in. Dems will never learn. Idiots.

The Capitulation enters its final stage.

Live blogging on the flip. It is only a 30 minute debate. The House adopted a special suspension for this with only a simple majority needed to pass the bill, whereas the Dem bill required 2/3 passage. A complete capitulation.

Jim Webb likes to project "toughness." But when it came to FISA, he cowered before Bush. Here is his "explanation":

Yesterday I supported two measures to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. These measures were considered against the backdrop of heightened concerns from our nation's intelligence community abut the threat of international terrorism. The ramifications of the two amendments before us last night were not political. Instead they related to the urgent demands of national security. I chose to heed those warnings. We now have six months to work in earnest to bring full accountability to the process. This distinction and the threats to national security were stated clearly by Admiral McConnell as well as four of the eight Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. These members, Senators Feinstein, Mikulski, Bayh, and Bill Nelson, have extensive experience on intelligence matters and are respected champions of civil rights and liberties. They chose to give significant weight and deference to the intelligence community on FISA reform, and so did I.

The Rockefeller bill took care of the problem. What Webb is saying is he voted for the MCConnell bill because Bush threatened to veto the Dem bill. In short, Webb cowered before Bush's veto threat. Some tough guy. Showing the way to capitulation to Bush.