Senate gives Bush what he wants in surveillance bill

With his approval rating at Nixonian levels, how did Bush "demand," as reports put it, that Congress approve an expanded surveillance bill? And he got what he demanded:

The Senate gave final approval Wednesday to a major expansion of the government's surveillance powers, handing President Bush one more victory in a series of hard-fought clashes with Democrats over national security.

The measure, approved 69-28, marks the biggest restructuring of federal surveillance law in 30 years. It includes a divisive element that Bush had deemed essential: legal immunity for the phone companies that cooperated in the National Security Agency (NSA) wiretapping program he approved after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The difference between Bush and Nixon is that Nixon was pressured out of office for his crimes; Bush, on the other hand, is rewarded for his illegal surveillance.

What difference did it make that we had a Democratic majority in Congress? None.

This is our reality for the near future: anything that's labeled as essential to "national security" will be passed, no matter how logically disconnected it is from genuine security, or how unconstitutional it is.