Standing Up

Byron Williams congratulates Congress on standing up to Bush on the ports.

And he wonders when they'll also stand up on the bigger issues-

Too bad some of that courage wasn't on display when you needlessly acquiesced to the president's desires to send our troops into Iraq. You have allowed the "few bad apples" alibi to remain as this country's definitive word on torture, when there is a paper trail that suggests otherwise. You have remained silent as the president defines NSA eavesdropping as a false choice between safety and civil liberties.

Do you really believe that standing up for six ports can erase the damage that six years of providing the president with a free "reign" has caused on the domestic and international fronts?

What he said.

Of course, the elephant in the room (no pun intended) is that the main reason they stood up to the President on this issue is because the voters demanded it- in large and loud numbers. It's an election year and they mostly just played to the polls. If the people cared as much about Iraq and domestic spying as they were made to do on the ports, we'd see more action in Congress. Not that that excuses the constitutional betrayal of the Republicans on those issues. It doesn't. But the apathetic public is a major factor here. The Constitution to most Americans is some obscure document they learned about long ago in history class; they find it as revelant to their lives today as the Magna Carta. And hey, who has time to worry about this stuff? Work to do, bills to pay, American Idols to watch.

Bottom line- as long as Busholini makes the trains run on time, they don't bother to think about the other stuff.