It wasn't a dream!

So House Democrats actually stood up to the WHS*, turned their backs on the fear merchants, and walked away. Yeah, I know I didn't say anything about it at the time; maybe it's just taken me this long to get over the shock.

Despite Shrub and the Shrubberies pulling out every rhetorical excess and innuendo they could find, the House didn't cave. Amazing.

Despite hearing Bush proclaim that failure to pass his FISA bill would "tie the hands" of “intelligence professionals ... working day and night to keep us safe,” that now "our country is more in danger of an attack," indeed one that will “make Sept. 11 pale by comparison” and which can only be stopped by giving him everything he wants, the House didn't cave. Astonishing.

Despite Iowa GOPer Steve King claiming letting the temporary law expire means the loss of "two-thirds of our intelligence gathering capability," Mitch McConnell accusing Democrats of being "more interested in seeing companies in court than seeing terrorists in jail,” Texas GOPper Ted Poe describing “joy throughout the terrorist cells throughout the world,” John Boehner frothing that this perfidity will "undermine our national security and endanger American lives," Dana Rohrabacher fantasizing about "families being murdered at Disneyland," and Ben Powell, general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, insisting that the lack of immunity would mean "we're not going to have one of the critical enabling factors of our operations," the House didn't cave. Utterly astounding.

Mind-boggling even, as some Dem leaders actually talked like vertebrates.

Nancy Pelosi said Shrub “knows full well that he has all the authority he needs.” More pointedly, she said said “he has nothing to offer but fear” and is "fearmongering."

In a blistering letter to Bush, House Intelligence Committee Chair Silvestre Reyes said "I, for one, do not intend to back down - not to the terrorists and not to anyone, including a President, who wants Americans to cower in fear."

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called Bush's claims about intelligence gaps "basically dishonest," "categorically false," "inaccurate," and "divisive." He accused Bush of "stoking fears" in an attempt "to stampede the House of Representatives to rubber-stamp legislation ... We will not be stampeded." Hoyer also suggested that the push for immunity is "a cover-up" because the White House is “very nervous about what might be disclosed.”

And there was also that earlier "Dear Colleague" letter from John Dingell, Ed Markey, and Bart Stupak calling for opposition to any bill containing immunity.

(We also heard from the Senate, with Harry Reid calling Bush on his "reckless attempt to manufacture a crisis,” echoed by Dick Durbin, and Sheldon Whitehouse saying Bush was “whipping up false fears” and “creating artificial confrontation.” But sorry guys, you had your chance. Your time has expired.)

Of course, one of the things that made it easier for Dems to re-enact the theory of evolution was the simple fact that they are right and the GOPpers are liars.

With the Protect America Act expiring this weekend, domestic wiretapping rules will revert to the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires the government to obtain a warrant from a special court to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance in the United States.

The original FISA law, these experts say, provides the necessary tools for the intelligence community to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists.

Timothy Lee, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, said the last time Congress overhauled FISA - after the September 11 terrorist attacks - President Bush praised the action, saying the new law "recognizes the realities and dangers posed by the modern terrorist."

"Those are the rules we'll be living under after the Protect America Act expires this weekend," Mr. Lee added. "There's no reason to think our nation will be in any more danger in 2008 than it was in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, or 2006."

Ben Wittes of the Brookings Institution said because existing warrantless surveillance begun under the temporary laws could continue for up to a year, the "sky is not falling at all."

As Kathy Gill says at her About.com blog on politics,

Are we really expected to believe that the White House is going to find a key terrorist on Sunday (after the current law expires) ... and then do nothing that they are legally empowered to do? That is the implication....

Actually, not quite; the implication rather is that they will be unable to do anything but stand by with "their hands tied" and watch as an attack that will make 9/11 "pale by comparison" occurs. And the GOPpers are already putting out the meme as to who is on "which side" in that scenario, as a video at Crooks & Liars shows.

In that video, Fred Barnes says Congressional Democrats want to make it "more difficult" to surveil terrorists - not that the effect of this is such-and-so, not that opposition to immunity will result in this-or-that, but that Democrats want to make things easier for terrorists. Taking it a step further, Chris Wallace - geez, his father must be so disappointed in him - says when Bush wanted the "power to listen in to al-Qaeda, the Democrats voted no."

Barnes also predicted that the House will fold and pass the Senate bill; that remains to be seen but the truth is, tough talk followed by wobbly knees has been the Dem pattern all along. So I don't have my hopes up but at the same time we can't dismiss the direct and deliberate slap given to Bush by the recess, an unmistakable statement that the leadership did not take what Ben Wittes called Bush's "apocalyptic rhetoric" seriously.

What's important now is for the Dems to not revert to being Dims or Dums and to have someone out there every day - every single day - attacking "fearmongering" by the White House and rejecting the claims of intelligence "gaps." They must not let the GOPper meme take root.

As for any of you reading this: Call your Rep. Tell them no extension of PAA, no renewal of PAA, no warrantless wiretapping, no immunity - and that this is a deal-breaker.

Footnote: There is a common misconception worthy of a quick mention which I thought I had done before but apparently haven't. In that story from the Orange County Register linked above, the paper's DC Bureau Chief Dena Bunis says

the Senate last week passed changes to the original 1978 FISA that would allow espionage on these international calls and e-mails that went through U.S. networks to continue.

That's misleading. It is accepted legal doctrine that foreigners outside the US do not have the Constitutional rights that citizens do at home. (Whether those rights should as a matter of human morality extend to them is not the issue here.) So if there is a call from, say, Egypt to Canada on which the government wanted to eavesdrop, it could. But since the FISA law was passed in 1978, changes in communication technology increased the chances that such a call would be routed through the US, which made spying on it subject to warrant requirements.

If all the PAA (which I still say is fittingly pronounced "pah!") did was to amend the FISA law to make clear it was not intended to apply to calls where both parties are non-US persons outside the US plus adding some minimization requirements to avoid collection of data about non-targets, I strongly suspect it would have passed quickly and without any particular controversy. It is the immunity provisions and an expansion, not merely a clarification, of warrantless surveillance authority that are at issue.

Another Footnote: The photo is by Stephen Boitano of AP. I don't know whether it was the creepy idea of intelligence agencies paying obeisance to Bush or the snarky one that it'd take the CIA to find Bush's intelligence, but it seemed appropriate,

*WHS = White House Sociopaths