Marty Kaplan:

Friday morning, President Bush came out of a meeting with Republican Congressional leaders and blasted House Democrats for not performing precisely the kind of fellatio on his FISA bill that he had requested. His statement was designed to get Democrats-are-soft-on-terror into the news cycle as he headed off on Air Force I to Africa. It worked: the cable nets covered it live. And then, CNN cut away to DeKalb, Illinois, where, we were told, "CNN correspondents have fanned out" to explore every conceivable aspect of the tragedy of the shooter-suicide.

Imagine if, instead, after Bush's statement, we were told that CNN correspondents had fanned out to cover every aspect of the FISA impasse. Instead of feeding us eye-witness accounts of the lone gunman, we would have heard firsthand accounts of telecom employees ordered to give spy agencies total electronic access to all Americans' communications with one another. Instead of offering color about a quiet campus struck by tragedy, imagine if cable news had provided a timely explanation of the FISA law we already have, with its existing provisions for wiretaps with judicial review. Instead of reporters asking why this black-clad deranged student could have done such a terrible lawless thing, we would have had reporters asking why companies that caved under lawless government pressure should now be retroactively pardoned for their cravenness. . . .

The two stories waging an unequal fight for airtime come together in this: the Illinois shooter proved a key point about terrorism. Random, horrifying violence attracts cameras like carrion attracts vultures. Every time George W. Bush whines petulantly about Democrats not pleasuring him exactly the way he demands, the power of his fear-mongering derives from the same media ecosystem that empowers all terrorists, whether at Ground Zero or Cole Hall. It's not their just ability to commit atrocity that makes them cast long shadows; it's insatiable capacity of media and its audience to pander to our appetite for sensation and our boredom with depth. Our species might have evolved a lot more happily if our limbic system got off as much on real knowledge as it does on real gore.

"At Long Last, The House Stands Firm" -- New York Times editorial, February 14, 2008:

Three cheers for the House of Representatives — and for the Democratic leadership.

The House took two major steps today that started to dispel the fog of fear and inertia that has surrounded the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill when it comes to challenging President Bush and their Republican colleagues.

First, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, did exactly the right thing when she decided to let the House go on a weeklong break without voting on an awful bill sent over from the Senate that would expand the president’s ability to spy on Americans without bothering to get a warrant. It would also help the White House cover up President Bush’s unlawful spying program after 9/11 by giving blanket immunity to any company that turned over data on Americans’ telephone calls and emails without a court order.

This means some technical modifications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will expire over the weekend and the president has already started sputtering about how failing to vote will cripple intelligence gathering. That’s pure nonsense. The president has all the power he needs to authorize wiretaps and email intercepts. Programs started under the expiring FISA modifications don’t even have to stop. It’s scare politics, pure and simple.

Second, the House voted, 223-32, to hold Joshua Bolten, the presidential chief of staff, and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, in contempt for thumbing their noses at congressional subpoenas. (The Republicans embarassed themselves, their constituents and their country by staging a walkout when the vote was called. On a straighforward measure that pitted the rule of law and the balance of powers against blind partisan loyalty, these members put themselves on the side of partisanship.)