So this brouhaha about the renewal of the Patriot Act is a little confusing, right?

Don’t worry, I can explain everything:

Democrats hate America. Republicans hate liberty.

Wow, that almost reads like some of the news reports, columns, and blogs about this, doesn’t it? And there’s a reason - if that’s not true, then things get complicated…

See, the Senate Judiciary Committee spent their summer vacation “improving” the Patriot Act. Bleeding heart liberals like Jeff Sessions and John Cornyn reached across the aisle to neocon zealots like Pat Leahy and Ted Kennedy to produce a new, improved Patriot Act, one that they claimed protected our freedoms and our homeland.

I’m not quite clear what their motivation was in doing this. Probably something to do with installing Saddam Hussein as mayor of Portland.

They almost got away with it: A clearly compromised Senate then voted for the new Patriot Act unanimously. Little data exists as to how many Senators’ children were kidnapped by the Leahy-Hatch gang during this period, but… well, the vote was suspiciously unanimous. And no senators made any statements that indicated that their children hadn’t been kidnapped. That oughta tell you something.

When the thing went into conference recently, though, the House managed to strip most of the Senate’s significant work from the reconciled bill. If you felt like reading the House’s Conference Report on the proceedings or the Joint Explanatory Statement, you might sort of begin to understand what went on (I don’t. They’re very long and wordy, and there are no chase sequences or hot sex scenes. Rent “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” instead). Long story short, al Qaeda operatives John Sununu (R., Baghdad) and Russ Feingold (D., Tikrit) formed a “bipartisan” group that vowed to block the new version of the bill because of “civil liberties” problems.

It should be noted that this is only called a “bipartisan” effort because it involves senators from both major parties. If that’s the way you define “bipartisan,” well, then the terrorists have already won.

In any case, that’s where we stand today. You can look at it as a bipartisan, bicameral trainwreck exacerbated by an uncompromising administration and a polarized electorate which obscures the deep and interesting concerns about the balance of personal freedom and national security. You could even read Barack Obama’s eloquent summation of the core issues (though he conveniently leaves out anything about the fate of the good people of Portland). You could do that.

But don’t. Say it with me: “Democrats hate America. Republicans hate liberty.”

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[UPDATE: Apparently one can’t make a permanent link to the Congressional Record. Clearly, that’s part of another crypto-partisan conspiracy. But thanks to Maximum Bob, I’ve updated the link to the same speech from the Senate floor, conveniently posted on Senator Obama’s website.]