Jack Balkin on "The Party of Fear, The Party Without a Spine, And The National Surveillance State"

At Balkinization.

We got this new FISA bill in roughly the same way we got into Iraq, IMHO. The Dems didn't really buy the Administration's case, but they knew that if they didn't go along with Bush they risked political catastrophe. If the invasion had, in fact, been a cakewalk then, no matter how ill-advised and unjustified, the GOP would have made political mincemeat of the Dems for, well, ever. Such calculations, combined with the standard issue Democratic vestigial spine, led them to go along with the invasion despite the dishonesty and lameness of the case for war.

So long as conservatives insist on painting everyone who disagrees with them as unpatriotic and soft on terrorism, we will continue to err on the side of too much aggression. And domestically we'll continue to err on the side of the surveillance state.