Without the support of the GOP.

Since the theme running through this administration since before 9/11 - remember Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US (I even remember the spelling for fuck's sake!) - is egregious abuse of intelligence, it's verging on criminal that the Dems on the committee of the senior house of Congress responsible for oversight of intelligence matters should have crouched like so many rabbits in their burrows rather than launch any investigation into any of these obscene perversions of power.

Dems - Rockefeller, Reid, the lot of them - have clearly taken advantage of public ignorance of the wide powers of the minority on the SIC to shirk their responsibilities. It's always far simpler and far more pleasant just to go along in Congress, to use Sam Rayburn's phrase (and he kept his seat for fifty years!).

Surely Greenwald knows all this!

The fact that Frist has committed himself to print on the issue suggests that he has broken out the brown trousers. Which, in the abstract, can't be a bad thing.

If Rockefeller actually has a bipartisan majority on the committee which supports an investigation in NSA abuses, it would surely be folly not to try and use it.

The record of Dem cowardice on judicial nominations in the face of threats of the nuclear option is a dire warning that pussyfooting wins no prizes.

Of course, in the end the Dems are going to fold. As they've proved time and time again, they're just so good at it!

And that's before we get onto the weak on national security tag: ten to one, JR is getting calls from the usual suspects saying that it's more important not to expose the party to cracks like in the war against terror, the GOP talk about special forces, while the Dems talk about special prosecutors than to get at the truth of the Bush administration's suborning of the nation's intelligence services to their own purposes.

Besides, the usual suspects will say, look to the time (really concentrate hard!) when the Dems are back in power: chances are, the nation's defense will require the sort of action that can't happen with a lawyer on the shoulder of each man involved. If you know what I mean.

Best not create a precedent. Semper fi. Or Hail to the Chief. Or Ours not to reason why.

All that shit.