Never count on a 'moderate' when power is on the line

In this issue of American Prospect (article is here - Human Failings but you have to subscribe) is an article by Mark Schmitt ; the tag line for the article is "The human-rights lobby learns a hard lesson about bipartisanship in a recent fight over torture legislation."

In the article, Schmitt looks at what he calls "[t]he crowning disgrace of this country's five-year experiment with one-party Republican rule", which is (was? let's hope!) the September 29 passage of the bill that killed habeas corpus, sanctioned abusive treatment, and allows the president a free hand in designating to whom the bill applies.

The Prospect isn't very expensive, but for those who can't afford even that little bit, here are a few excerpts from the article.

Even with their president's approval ratings at Nixonian levels, and their own sinking below that, congressional Republicans were able to muster one last grand gesture of disciplined subservience to their only master, power itself. Their logic was best expressed by Senator Arlen Specter, who declared, "I can't support [this] bill. … I'd be willing, in the interest of party loyalty, to turn the clock back 500 years, but 800 years goes too far." And then he sucked it up and voted yea to the 12th century.

Democrats opposed the bill but elected not to fight or filibuster. Perhaps it was a reasonable calculation: A filibuster would have failed, and many days' worth of headlines would have shifted the agenda to President Bush's preferred frame—we Republicans are the only things holding back the coming Islamofascist caliphate. But why was the calculation reasonable? What created the political conditions that made torture not only a political issue, but one in which the moral absolute—"don't torture"—became the losing side?

***

There exists in this country something called the "human-rights movement." Its key organizations-Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and others-are well funded and respected, and have had some notable successes. But as a political force, unfortunately, they were not strong enough either to force the Republicans to balk at this bill or to force the Democrats to see that they could withstand the political fallout of the moral stance. Why?

It's not that they didn't work hard enough or muster good arguments or mobilize their members. But three factors limited their ability to influence the recent debate. First, all three organizations have been under sustained attack. ... Second, these organizations have generally eschewed politics. ... Finally, the human-rights movement, to a greater degree than just about any advocacy community, depends on and prides itself on bipartisan support. ...

But the military detainee bill put the value of these bipartisan alliances to the test. When the question was called, where were those Republicans? I suspect Specter spoke for all of them: Nothing is more important than power.

After a look at what he thinks the human-rights movement needs to do (short form: get involved in politicking), this is his sobering conclusion:

Someday, perhaps soon, there will again be a Republican Party that responds to evidence and respects international law, the Constitution, and simple morality. But until that day comes, the strategies that worked so well in the 1980s and 1990s will fail again and again, even on the simplest moral question.

Once again we have to ask it: When the question was called, where were those Republicans?"

'Moderate Republicans' vote with their party when crunch time comes, no matter how personally abhorrent that party's position is to them. It's what they do.

This is yet another reason for voting out the GOP in the House and Senate this election.