Democrats' Corrupt Process Leads to Failure on FISA

So thanks to Eric Cantor's shrewd parliamentary maneuver, House Democrats have been forced to defer a vote on terrorist surveillance legislation. The debate is on over who was playing politics--but Democrats give the game away by admitting they may be forced to allow debate on amendments.

Look at how we arrived where we are today:

• The House voted on FISA a little over two months ago and passed a short-term extension by a bipartisan vote.

• Democrats insisted that the extension be short-term so that they would have the opportunity to come back and revise the law.

• When it came time to vote on a long-term extension, Congressional Democratic leaders shut Republicans out of the drafting process. Regarding the process, House Republicans had this to say:

  It does not reflect discussions between the majority and the minority, or discussions the Committee has had with the Administration. It is also important to note that the minority was not consulted on specific text before introduction of the bill, and did not receive the final text of H.R. 3773 until twenty-four hours before the markup. In the brief period we had to review the legislation before Committee consideration, we uncovered numerous, serious problems rendering this bill beyond repair.

• When the time came to vote on the bill--which rejected the policy established by a bipartisan majority a few months ago, and which excluded all Republican input--Democrats acted in almost unprecedented fashion to shut down all debate on the House floor and forbid national security advocates from influencing the debate.

Perhaps most amusing of all, when forced to explain why they blocked a floor debate, Democrats said it was important to move swiftly to reauthorize the law. Never mind that it was they who insisted the law expire quickly; if this was really their view then they would schedule a vote to extend the measure as is--since the votes were clearly there for such a measure.

Now, after this abuse of process and national security, what does the left say when Republicans use the one procedural opportunity afforded them to force Democrats to cast a difficult vote?

'They're not playing fair.'

Read the breathless explanations on the left--from DailyKos, ThinkProgress, TalkingPointsMemo. They all say the same thing: Cantor's motion-to-recommit was unfair because it called for a vote on something already in the bill, and some Democrats would have looked bad if they voted against it. It was 'trickery.' If that's the best argument they can come up with, Soros's money is being wasted.