What About The Other Guys?

This screenshot is from the Stargate SG-1 episode The Other Guys. It's a story about a group of scientists and engineers about whom the military folks have very low expectations. It seems an apt metaphor today.

We've been discussing the the Democrats' performance regarding the recent changes to FISA the Congress passed this weekend. Nothing I'm about to write in any way excuses their performance, which was shameful, craven, and downright stupid. It showed a shocking lack of respect for the country they're supposed to lead, and a distressing lack of leadership in both houses.

But they're not the only major party in Congress. The other guys disgraced themselves, too. Only two Republicans in the House voted against this measure. Hopefully, at least those two did it out of a genuine sense of how a democracy should work, and didn't just hit the wrong button on their voting machines. I don't know how many Senate Republicans voted against it, but I suspect that it wasn't any more than two.

Maybe the saddest thing about this is that the other party doesn't seem to respect democracy at all, and that we don't expect any better of them.

UPDATE: As of 1:25 PM PDT Aug. 6, the Senate website still hasn't posted the roll call of the vote on this bill. I don't know where folks get the information about who did or didn't vote for the bill, but it's not from there.