The Prince of Darkness Robert Novak does some illuminating on the FISA debate and surpise surprise, it's all about the money...

Writes Novak...
The recess by House Democrats amounts to a judgment that losing the generous support of trial lawyers, the Democratic Party's most important financial base, would be more dangerous than losing the anti-terrorist issue to Republicans. .....

And of course the always useful factual support....
Big money is involved. (duh) Amanda Carpenter, a Townhall.com columnist, has prepared a spreadsheet showing that 66 trial lawyers representing plaintiffs in the telecommunications suits have contributed $1.5 million to Democratic senators and causes. Of the 29 Democratic senators who voted against the FISA bill last Tuesday, 24 took money from the trial lawyers (as did two absent senators, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama).

Ahem. With Democrats it's more about taking care of trial lawyers than it is protecting the voters who put them there.  I wonder if they thought it trough to the point they figured terrorists will kill more Republicans than Democrats.

This just underscores one of my recurring themes here; the single biggest cancer destroying this country is careerist incumbency.  A candidate selection process similar to jury duty that randomly mandates service from a mostly unwitting society could not be worse than careerist incumbents whose sole priority is keeping their job.  If you enjoy legal citizenry here part of the deal is that you might have to take a two-year or six year stint in Congress.  Radical? perhaps, but I see it as less risky than the current system which shows time and again that incumbent retention is all that matters.