Apologists for the Democratic Party who refine “lesser evil voting” to a high art, should have been hanging their heads low for quite a while now with the advent of Obama’s Bush policies on national security and foreign policy (among others). But this jingoist, warring bipartisanship – regardless of campaign slogans to the contrary – manifests throughout Congress as well, of course. Harry Reid has been summoning the ghost of Dick Cheney to fear monger civil libertarians on the Patriot Act. Either you’re for the Patriot Act, or you’re for the terrorists, he says.

Spencer Ackerman:

This happens to be as predictable as gravity effects the fallen here on earth. Still, with election cycles revving up, we can be sure the entirety of the American electorate will clamor for their chosen parties and candidates, utterly convinced by their perfunctory rhetoric. And consistent libertarians will endure a year or two of condemnation for cynicism and patriotic duties to vote gone unfulfilled, and then find their vindication again when those newly elected liars prove as cowardly and dishonest as Harry Reid.