The State of the Union 2008 wasn't all boring. In addition to essentially declaring war on Iran, Bush demanded that Congress pass the new FISA legislation tout d'suite<fn>. He naturally couched the demand in a way that failure on Congress's part to do so would play directly into the hands of the terrorists and make America unsafe. Congress, for their part, has agreed to the legislation, but dared to take exception to the provision for retroactive immunity for telecoms companies that aided in illegal wiretapping operations. Bush has demanded that the bill<fn> be sent to him as-is or he will veto it. As Keith Olbermann so eloquently recaps in <a href="http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/75707/" source="AlterNet" author="Christy Hardin Smith">Olbermann's Special Comment on FISA</a>, taking Bush at his word implies that: <ol> If the legislation is not passed at all, American citizens are in danger. If the legislation is passed without the provision for retroactive immunity, certain companies in America may be prosecuted and/or fined. If Congress passes the legislation with the provision, Bush will veto it. Ergo, Bush cares more about protecting corporations from prosecution for crimes they <i>may have</i> committed than he does about protecting American citizens. Or, as Olbermann put it, <iq>...you, Mr. President, in your own terms and your own words, will have just sided with the terrorists.</iq> </ol> Check and mate. Of course, trapping Bush in a logical cul-de-sac has never been a full day's work.<fn> The only thing missing from the president's speech was an actual admission that those companies had colluded with the NSA to break US wiretapping law. In that light, Bush is willing to risk American lives by vetoing a bill that does not contain retroactive amnesty for crimes he doesn't even admit occurred. Since he can't come out and admit that they actually committed those crimes until they have their immunity safely in hand, he must, in effect, ask for this immunity for hypothetical crimes. This adds an even more surreal gloss to his presidency than ever before. Again, in Olbermann's words, <bq>[d]on't you know?!? Does the endless hair-splitting of your presidential fine-print extend even here? If you, sir, are asking Congress and us to join you in this literal, shameless, breathless, textbook example of fascism<fn>---the merged efforts of government and corporations that answer to no government---you still don’t have the guts to even say that the telecom companies <i>did</i> assist you in your efforts? Will you and the equivocators who surround you like a cocoon <i>never</i> go on the record about anything? Even the stuff you claim to believe in?</bq> That proof was happily provided by the vice president later in the week, when he phoned in to tell Rush Limbaugh that <iq>The FISA bill is about, quote, 'retroactive liability protection for the companies <b>that have worked with us</b> and helped us prevent further attacks against the United States.'</iq> (Emphasis added.) The Olbermann video also includes portions of an interview with a whistleblower from AT&T, who provides details of the wiretapping effort, wherein <i>all</i> traffic through certain hubs on the AT&T network was passed on to the government. Not just international or potentially suspicious stuff, but all of it. Every last byte. To the government's most secret of secret services. It's worth watching the entire special comment; it's really well done. Naturally, Bush can't do this alone. When (not if) the telecom immunity is passed, one will have to wonder how this happened with a Congress and Senate full of people who should ostensibly be interested in the rule of law. The article <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/17/6425/" source="Common Dreams" author="Glenn Greenwald">Lawbreaking Telecoms Still Conniving to Obtain Immunity from Congress</a> raises the point that the Democratic candidates, despite their protestations to the contrary, don't really care any more than Bush does about actual justice. They haven't said a peep in protest about it in their near-constant stream of blather on the campaign trail. <bq>Manifestly, retroactive immunity is something available only to the largest, lobbyist-using corporations ... [y]et as Clinton, Obama and Edwards parade around rhetorically proclaiming their “leadership abilities” and their willingness to fight vested interests in Washington and to defend the rule of law, they abdicate one opportunity after the next to demonstrate their authenticity. ... [I]immunity would be a complete evisceration of the rule of law, bizarrely protecting telecoms from the consequences of their lawbreaking and putting an end to any real hope for investigating and obtaining accountability for years of illegal spying on Americans by the Bush administration.</bq> <hr> <ft>The intimation that Bush would use French is, of course, wholly ironic.</ft> <ft>Which bears the completely Orwellian name, the "Protect America Act". Seriously? That's the best you can do? That's on the same level as the the kid who glues paper wings to a Hot Wheels racer and calls it a "Super-Duper Flying Car" at the school science fair.</ft> <ft>One is reminded of Matt Dillon's efforts on the football field in <i>There's Something About Mary</i>.</ft> <ft>In this case, we'll have to allow Olbermann the use of the textbook definition of fascism---which is perfectly applicable here---because he explicitly referred to it. Given the Bush administration's love for the term "Islamofascism", we can forgive Olbermann for throwing the term---far more appropriately applied---right back at them.</ft>