Dodd Threatens Filibuster on FISA Bill: Reid Caves

Democratic presidential candidate Christopher Dodd doesn't like the new FISA deal worked out between the White House and Democratic leaders.

In fact, he threatened to mount an old fashioned, one man filibuster if Harry Reid brought the measure to the floor. Typically, rather than fight Dodd procedurely, the Majority Leader caved in and withdrew the measure until after the Christmas recess:

After daylong debate in the Senate on the wiretapping issue, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, announced at the end of the day that there would not be time to consider the legislation this week as he had hoped. With a dozen competing amendments on the issue and an omnibus spending bill separately awaiting consideration, Mr. Reid said he believed it would be difficult to give the wiretapping issue the close consideration that it deserved this week before the Senate leaves for its Christmas recess.

“Democrats are committed to improving our nation’s intelligence laws while protecting Americans’ civil liberties,” Mr. Reid said. “We need to take the time necessary to debate a bill that does just that, rather than rushing one through the legislative process.”

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat and presidential candidate, spent much of the day attacking the idea of giving immunity to the phone companies, and he took credit for the delay.

“Today we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not tolerate his abuse of power and veil of secrecy,” Mr. Dodd said in a statement.

“The president should not be above the rule of law, nor should the telecom companies who supported his quest to spy on American citizens,” he said.

Not surprisingly, this manuever has made Dodd the darling of the netroots who want to stick it to the Telecoms for cooperating with Bush's White House in tracking terrorist phone calls. In liberal fantasy land, every issue is black and white - civil liberties are absolute and even with extraordinary safeguards in place to protect privacy, nothing matters more than skewering the president for his desire to protect the country.

The Telecoms want retroactive immunity to protect them against these nitwits - and who can blame them. And after a hard compromise on the issue was worked out, Dodd comes from the campaign trail to blow it up - just to pander to the far left.

Absolutely shameless.