The enemy is (B)us(h)

The House has passed a doomed version of Senate 2248 without immunity for the telecoms who helped the government track terrorists. Michael Goldfarb from the Weekly Standard blog asks:

By taking weeks to pass a bill with no chance of enactment, the House is intentionally wasting time in the effort to get a reauthorization of the program signed into law. Why do they want to prolong the period of time that our nation's terrorist surveillance program is weakened? And if they are serious about this law, then why would they drag out the debate with pointless actions such as the one the House took today--particularly when Congress is beginning a two-week recess?

Here's a stab. As he alludes, they can't be serious otherwise it would have been defeated on principle so we know their goal is political posturing. But it might also be a game of chicken. In other words, the longer they delay passage and the country goes without this protection Bush has called critical, and no terrorist attacks occur, the more it will make the program itself look unnecessary and non-critical (despite the fact the Dems on the intel committees are fully aware of threats).

And if there's an attack during the Democrat stall? Two routes seem available. The truther route would be less preferred, blaming the attack directly on Bush via black ops agents headed by someone evil like Karl Rove. A more mainstream explanation would be condemning and blaming the terrorists, then explaining their anger was solely based on our illegal invasion of Iraq. We would then be reminded that Obama warned us about going to Iraq in 2002, ergo, if elected, Obama will save us by withdrawing. As to factual assistance from the mainstream press on any of this, based on the handling of Katrina and the recent Pentagon report on Iraq we can't expect much more than rehashed democrat talking points. It's a win-win.