Digby:
...I laugh out loud when I hear people say that congress must pass retroactive immunity or read stories about Michael Mukasey choking up when describing how the government needs to spy on Americans with impunity to keep the country safe. Even suggesting that the administration might have used these powers for political purposes is met with vociferous objection, as if that's so outrageous as to be nearly delusional. Why you might as well be a Hale-Bopp cultist or a believer in the Protocols of the Elders Of Zion.
And yet we know that the Bush Department of Justice was a cesspool of political corruption emanating from the very top. They destroyed the life of a Democratic Governor in Mississippi for partisan gain. They pursued five times as many public corruption charges against Democrats than Republicans in an era of Republican political majority. They ruined the careers of honest prosecutors who refused to indict Democrats on trumped up charges of voter fraud. Evidently, they fired people for being gay as well.
To simply accept that these people skirted FISA only for the righteous purposes of chasing down terrorist operations is absurd. We already know the kinds of thing the Bush justice department did. Why in the world would we not assume they used all the powers at their disposal to spy on political opponents?
Of course they did. We'd have to be complete idiots to think otherwise.
The problem is that to many people it is simply unthinkable they don't live in the America they think they grew up in.
When the world is shown to be very different than their beliefs, people often disregard the data. This is another reason why faith is a bad idea. Better to regard our worldview as a model to be tested, assessed, and modified for re-testing.
Clearly, the truth is out there. Facts, their determination and their interpretation, remain the only road to it.
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