..out of the dark

So, what happened here? FISA, as we should know, was enacted to prevent general fishing expeditions on "suspected targets" deemed by the government to appear guilty as hell in being a threat to the homeland, etc. However, due to this administration's unfortunate tendency to wage war on general, abstract fantasies, what's needed is: general, abstract enemies. And as such, specific intelligence pointing to specific people, even if this would be conducted in secret, is not enough.

So what they need is open- ended reach to pursue - and declare guilty - anyone the government deems is a threat. Which is found by "government" through it's virtue of being all- powerful and all- knowing.

The enemies, naturally, are of the kind that - as Jose Padilla was accused of in his trial, which comes after four years of torture and solitary confinement, and numerous charges that has since been dropped, not to mention during which crucial evidence about his condition in jail has been inconspicuously "mislaid" by the military - disguises their nefarious /planning/ of /evil plots/ through seemingly inconspicuous references to "zucchini", "children" and their family in general.

Here, for instance, is hitherto classified transcripts of such an evil terrorist's communications:

Originally posted by http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/08/01/fava-beans-and-babies/":

UMMM SAMIR Did you lose weight or are you still the same?
ADHAM HASSOUN No, I’m pretty much the same
UMM SAMIR Yeah Praise me to Allah
ADHAM HASSOUN the same, the same, losing weight…my wife is not feeding me at all [sarcasm]

Truly, one can easily see here that what the government needs is more of this type of intelligence, in order to successfully prosecute DANGEROUS TERRORISTS.

And so the Senate votes for gutting FISA once and for all, while aknowledging the White House's claim that their interpretation of the Constitution will - with minimal fuss - be supported by the representatives. Meaning that the White House gets their way, while also weakening the case for impeachment in answer to their constitutional excesses. Indeed, we will now have to start at the bottom and work our way up, and eventually hope to have a majority of representatives who in fact knows what the bloody document means. Hell, with any luck, perhaps we can convince half of the american people to bloody read it as well.

But hey - well done, idiots. Oh, yeah. I know - let's spend some more time at "message- crafting", so the American public will know how categorically much better the Democrats are for everything, including the /handling/ of the invasion in Iraq (that simply had to happen). That's bound to solve your problems in the next election, don't you think? I mean, eventually, you can just compete for the braindead 35% republican vote, and disgust everyone else into not voting. It's simply the perfect plan!

Except, it apparently involves gutting the constitution forever, without any clear vision of why, in what way, and exactly how. A bit of a problem. Or, so I thought, of course.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.