Senator Ken Salazar: Bipartisan, silent, obedient

On FISA:

That's typically the way Washington works -- the most significant laws are seamlessly enacted with little real debate or attention, driven by corporations and lobbyists working in secret with Senators, cheered on by the Serious media pundits, with bipartisan pools of lawmakers silently and obediently on board. And once those forces line up behind any measure, it is normally almost impossible to stop it -- not just stop it, but even disrupt it at all. That's the insulated Beltway parlor, virtually impervious to outside influences, least of all the opinions of the citizen-rabble.

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All of those standard Beltway forces are squarely lined up behind telecom immunity and new eavesdropping powers, and yet, things are not proceeding smoothly for them at all. Back in December, Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller and Mitch McConnell scheduled just a couple of days for the FISA debate because they assumed that was all that would be needed to deliver quickly and quietly to the President everything he demanded.