Oh Glenn. Any excuse to stroke your Obama Derangement Syndrome, right?

The rabidly pro-war and anti-Muslim GOP former Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King, has repeatedly lavished Obama with all sorts of praise and support for his policies in those areas. The Obama White House frequently needs, and receives, large amounts of GOP Congressional support to have its measures enacted or bills its dislikes defeated. The Obama DOJ often prevails before the US Supreme Court solely because the Roberts/Scalia/Thomas faction adopts its view while the Ginsburg/Sotomayor/Breyer faction rejects it (as happened in February when the Court, by a 5-4 ruling, dismissed a lawsuit brought by Amnesty and the ACLU which argued that the NSA’s domestic warrantless eavesdropping activities violate the Fourth Amendment; the Roberts/Scalia wing accepted the Obama DOJ’s argument that the plaintiffs lack standing to sue because the NSA successfully conceals the identity of which Americans are subjected to the surveillance).

It’s amazing how much reality can give way before one’s righteous indignation. Someone needs to stage an intervention on Glenn before he overdoses. Oops, too late.

The [Amash] amendment was simple. It would de-fund one single NSA program: the agency’s bulk collection of the telephone records of all Americans that we first revealed in this space, back on June 6. It accomplished this “by requiring the FISA court under Sec. 215 [of the Patriot Act] to order the production of records that pertain only to a person under investigation”.

That’s right, Mr. Creosote! One wafer-thin NSA program! Although one might be a bit suspicious that a measure proposed by legislators who claimed they didn’t know much about the program might not actually accomplish their goals. It’s also interesting that the NDAA-2013, which the Amash amendment amended, never gets brought up, probably because of this uncomfortable detail:

Guantanamo Bay - The legislation prohibits funding for transfers of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. or its territories, prohibits funding to modify any facility in the U.S. to house detainees, and places conditions on the release of detainees to other countries. These provisions are similar to language contained in the fiscal year 2013 Defense Appropriations legislation.

Because what the NSA might do with all that metadata is just so much more anti-liberty than shoving food tubes up indefinitely-detained prisoners’ rectums. But let’s ignore that for a moment. Back to hating on Democrats, Glenn!

The White House then condemned Amash/Conyers this way: “This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process.” What a multi-level masterpiece of Orwellian political deceit that sentence is. The highly surgical Amash/Conyers amendment - which would eliminate a single, specific NSA program of indiscriminate domestic spying - is a “blunt approach”, but the Obama NSA’s bulk, indiscriminate collection of all Americans’ telephone records is not a “blunt approach”. Even worse: Amash/Conyers - a House bill debated in public and then voted on in public - is not an “open or deliberative process”, as opposed to the Obama administration’s secret spying activities and the secret court that blesses its secret interpretations of law, which is “open and deliberative”. That anyone can write a statement like the one that came from the Obama White House without dying of shame, or giggles, is impressive.

Two wrongs make a right! It’s almost as if reflexive de-funding of programs you don’t like is a bad way to solve problems. I suppose the dig about openness and accountability is fair, though.

So the history of Democratic leaders such as Nancy Pelosi isn’t one of opposition to mass NSA spying when Bush was in office, only to change positions now that Obama is. The history is of pretend opposition - of deceiving their supporters by feigning opposition - while actually supporting it.

The Democrats are really sekrit neocons! They’re colluding against true Liberty Patriot Warriors! Break out the tinfoil!

Gah, it goes on and on like this. Glenn really likes the sound of his own keyboard, doesn’t he? So brave.