"This Republican Congress"

Digby catches Nancy Pelosi blaming Republicans for rubber stamping President Bush's assertion of domestic surveillance powers.

Stewart: You'll rubber stamp?

Pelosi: No rubber stamp. And in terms of, say, for example, domestic surveillance, no president, Democrat or Republican should have the power that this president wanted to have. So it isn't -- and the Congress of the United States has to assert its prerogatives. And this Republican Congress has been a rubber stamp for so long, but that will change.

In reality, Congress is now Democratically controlled and has been so since Jan. 07 (one would presume the the Speaker of the House would be aware that her party is, in fact, the majority party). And it was, in fact, this Democratic Congress which just rewarded President Bush for illegally voiding the 4th Amendment for the entire nation by giving him precisely the powers he wanted and by denying citizens access to the courts to protect their rights by granting telecom companies retroactive immunity for helping the government to illegally spy on them - something which President Bush was unable to obtain from the previous Republican Congress.

Sorry, Speaker Pelosi. When it comes to rubber stamping domestic surveillance powers, you and the other Democrats who voted away a significant chunk of the Fourth Amendment have become part of the problem.

Digby also observes

And, by the way, one thing she says is undoubtedly true: the Democratic congress will give President Obama a much harder time than they ever gave Bush. No rubber stamps, that's for sure. The only time Democrats ever put up a fight is against their own.

That certainly was the case made by Walter Karp in Liberty Under Siege. And recall the asymmetry of Democrats who voted to censure Bill Clinton for lying about a sexual affair with another adult not voting to censure George W. Bush for lying about illegally have authorized spying on American citizens.