Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Over on Alternet there's a fine story about Pelosi, Reid, Rockefeller, Daschle, Graham et al. keeping quiet about Bush's NSA snooping project, although they knew about it. The only flaw in the Alternet piece is that it isn't sufficiently dismissive of the Democrats' excuse for not speaking out:

They didn't go public with their concerns because they were bound by rules governing classified briefings of congressional members.... As a condition of receiving a classified briefing, the congressional member agrees not to disclose any of the contents.... Pelosi got caught in this bind. If she blows the whistle on the spy program, she ran the risk of being stripped of her security clearance -- and sanctioned by the Republican-controlled House.

Now this is baloney. It's a fundamental principle of ethics and law that you can't be constrained by law to commit an illegal act, or by morality to commit a bad one. If a lawyer learns that his client is planning to murder someone, then he is obliged to violate privilege and prevent the murder.

Same for these collusive Democrats; they're not just cowards, they made themselves accessories.

---