Legal Commentary

Absurd But Useful

By Big Tent Democrat

Atrios writes:

The absurdity is obvious. Dirty f---ing hippies like me were horrified at the illegal warrantless wiretapping program and general expansion of the surveillance state in part because of the potential for political abuse . . . Jane Harman and her pal Joe Klein heaped scorn on dirty f---ing hippies for such crazy views. Harman gets caught up . . . though the release of the details of it might be evidence of the kind of political abuse possible in any surveillance program. Suddenly Harman is a staunch defender the right of People Like Jane Harman to not be wiretapped.

I return to my first principle of politics - pols are pols and do what they do. When primaried by Winograd in 2006, Harman became an opponent of warrantless wiretapping. Now, for more political reasons, she is an even more vehement opponent of it. Our reaction should not be to just have fun at Harman's expense - but to USE HARMAN - to forward OUR policy goals. I do not see what is so hard to understand about this.< UPDATE - Glenn Greenwald gets the absurd, but seems unwilling to try the useful.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 04, 2009 (boomark / email).