NSA Spying Probe - Rove won

When the news broke earlier this month that Karl Rove was muscling United States senators on the Judiciary Committee regarding the NSA domestic spying probe, I noted the following.

This is not, as Bush apologists will insist, politics as usual. This is obstruction of justice. It is a crime against democracy.

Karl Rove is attempting to circumvent (yes, there is that word again) the investigative process. This senior official of the White House is threatening United States senators to achieve a pre-determined outcome on behalf of the president. It is exactly the same as if gangsters threatened the lives of jurors in the trial of a mob boss.

It remains only to to be seen how susceptible these senators are to such naked thuggery. Will they discharge their duties faithfully to the American people, or will they complete the process of subordinating the legislative branch of government to the executive?

Now we learn that Republicans on the Sentate Intelligence Committee have received, and apparently succumbed to, similar White House pressure.

The Senate intelligence committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a Democratic-sponsored motion to start an inquiry into the recently revealed program in which the National Security Agency eavesdrops on an undisclosed number of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents without obtaining warrants from a secret court. Two committee Democrats said the panel -- made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats -- was clearly leaning in favor of the motion last week but now is closely divided and possibly inclined against it.

They attributed the shift to last week's closed briefings given by top administration officials to the full House and Senate intelligence committees, and to private appeals to wavering GOP senators by officials, including Vice President Cheney. "It's been a full-court press," said a top Senate Republican aide who asked to speak only on background -- as did several others for this story -- because of the classified nature of the intelligence committees' work.

The Washington Post does not make reference to the same kind of heavy-handed threats that Insight magazine reported, but I can read between the lines of phrases like "all-out White House lobbying" and "full-court press."

If these Republicans loved their country, they would charge Rove & Co. with contempt of congress, rather than lie down for these thugs.