The NY Times has a great editorial that sums up why I’m so pissed off about the six senate defectors (via DailyKos) :

The confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general yesterday was depressing. The president deserves a great deal of leeway in choosing his own cabinet. But beyond his other failings, Mr. Gonzales has come to represent the administration’s role in paving the way for the abuse and torture of prisoners by American soldiers and intelligence agents. Giving him the nation’s top legal post is a terrible signal to send the rest of the world, and to American citizens concerned with human rights.
[. . .]
It was Mr. Gonzales who asked for the original legal advice from the Justice Department on the treatment of prisoners in the “war on terror.” There was no need to go through that exercise; the rules were clear. But Mr. Gonzales gave the president the flexibility he wanted, first in the Justice Department memo outlining ways to make torture seem legal, and then by offering the Orwellian argument that the president can declare himself above the law and can order illegal actions like detaining prisoners without a hearing and authorizing torture.

Republican senators made much of the fact that the White House repudiated the original memo on torture – after it became public. But this is not just a matter of historical interest. Mr. Gonzales testified that he agreed with the substance of the original torture memo, and he still takes the view that the president can declare himself to be above the law. In written responses to senators’ questions, Mr. Gonzales argued that intelligence agents could “abuse” prisoners as long as they did it to foreigners outside the United States.

I’ve defended Joe Lieberman plenty of times in the past. Despite everything, I still reject the idea that any of the sinister six represent “Democrats in name only”. Each of these six has a voting record that I would gladly take over a “moderate” Republican like John McCain, but even then, this is much more about politics than ideology.

Perhaps I’m being too generous here, but I also should probably take a half-step away from my earlier comment that the six are “pro-torture”. While torture was one of the central issues in the Gonzales confirmation, since the issue at hand wasn’t explicitly in regards to the use of torture as an interrogation tactic, it’s a bit of a slander to say that a vote for Gonzales represents a vote for torture. A more precise way to put it would be that the sinister six (and their GOP buddies) aren’t anti-torture enough. I’ll admit that this is a legalistic way of viewing things and that normal rhetorical sloppiness generally allows statements to be turned around, I’m annoyed with how frequently people make logical fallacies and jump to conclusions that the evidence doesn’t support.¹ In this case, however, six of one / half a dozen of the other right?

The statement I won’t back away from, however, is that the sinister six are a bunch of cowards. Some might try to defend these Senators by pointing out that they represent conservative states and/or that they’re up for reelection soon in an “unsafe” seat, but that just proves my point. If you’re more concerned with job security than any of the issues outlined in the article quoted above, then you’re a gutless cur who doesn’t deserve the honor of being a member of our most cherished legislative body.

Once again, in the interests of being honest here, I have to admit that my motives are political as well. The Democratic party is slowly coming back to life after more than a decade in hibernation. Harry Reid in particular has done a great job uniting the senate members of the senate, which makes the defection of these six even more disappointing. It’s not as if they were being asked to stand alone against the President and the GOP majority, they had their entire party backing them. The whole point of a political party is that there’s strength in numbers, but this evidently wasn’t enough to keep the sinister six from stabbing their fellow Democrats in the back.

So what now? Well, I’d still prefer a turncoat Democrat over a Republican, but I do think there should be a political price paid for their disloyalty. Since I left my previous post intentionally vague, here’s some specific actions I’d like to see taken against the party traitors :

Embarrass these chickenshits at home. Contact the local media and write a letter to the editor of the local newspapers explaining why the senate confirmation of Alberto Gonzales was a mistake and point out the Senator’s role in making it happen.

If the Democrats regain control of the senate in 2006 (doubtful, but we can dream can’t we?), none of these six get to lead a committee. Regardless of seniority, these guys deserve the caucus equivalent of a court martial.

Where safe, mount primary challenges. I lashed out at Kos last week for his posts suggesting this very thing for Lieberman in response to the Rice confirmation, but this has really hit a nerve with me. I’m on board now. Joementum’s gotta go. If Florida or Nebraska are deemed safe enough, then the Nelsons need to be taken down as well.

Once the new leadership settles at the DNC, warn these six that any stray from the party line on an issue this big again will mean that their next election will have to be fought without a single dime from the national party.

This may seem petty and vindictive, but I don’t care. The Republicans pull this kinda stuff all the time and that’s why they win elections. If we want to have a similar level of success, we need to start drawing some lines in the sand and stand tough against our allies who cross them.

^{1 : I made a similar argument a while back in arguing that Bush’s appearance at Bob Jones university didn’t make him a racist, but rather showed that he wasn’t anti-racist. That said, my opinion on whether or not the President is racist has changed a bit. I’ll explain more in an upcoming post.}