Oh, this is too precious:

Republicans accuse Democrats of moving too slowly on spy bill

An angry group of Republican House members accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday of delaying a vote on President Bush’s legislative priority — a measure amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Earlier in the day, House Democrats rearranged the schedule to place the measure in third place, after an energy bill and funding for the Defense Department.

This is ludicrous on at least three major levels: first, that the specifics demanded in the Republican version of the legislation are reasonable or necessary; second, that it is indeed an “emergency” and is needed now as opposed to later today or even tomorrow; and third, that the Republicans are railing at Democrats for delaying by a day or two what has been already delayed by the White House for months, at a time, when the Republicans in Congress are being massively obstructionist and stopping huge amounts of vital legislation with the filibuster for no better reason that it “works for us” politically. (That last was Trent Lott himself, who said in April: “the strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail … and so far it’s working for us. Democrats are the ones taking the blame for not getting anything done.”)

The fact of the matter is, this recent FISA bill is another “Patriot Act” bamboozle: claim pressing national security, say it’s an emergency and needs to be done yesterday, then wail on the Democrats like there’s no tomorrow, screaming that they’re putting the country at risk. And it’s working, of course.

He and other GOP leaders have said that the country will be at a greater risk of a terrorist attack if Congress doesn’t act immediately—and they have accused Democrats of “playing politics” by balking at some of the provisions the administration is seeking.

And so, from the CNN article:

Last night, the House rejected a Democratic version of the FISA bill, 218-207, with a two-thirds majority required for passage, but the Senate passed a Republican-sponsored bill Friday night, 60-28.

Some Democratic sources have predicted the House will pass the Republican-sponsored measure, and send it to Bush.

Republicans claim there’s a huge rush on this, and that the Democrats have failed to respond to it:

“There’s been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States,” Boehner said on an interview with Fox News anchor Neal Cavuto.

“This means that our intelligence agencies are missing a wide swath of potential information that could help protect the American people,” Boehner added. “The Democrats have known about this for months.”

Umm, okay… then what has the White House been doing? Or Republicans in Congress, for that matter? Apparently no Republican has seen fit to move on this in the same four- or five-month period. It has only become an issue in the last hours before August recess–when the White House and Republicans can conveniently pressure the Democrats into accepting a questionable version of the legislation.

One of the major sticking points: the administration’s insistence that Alberto Gonzales be given broad new authority to oversee warrantless wiretapping. Now, why on Earth would Democrats want to object to that? Hasn’t Gonzales proved himself to them yet? Why would they not be eager to hand over unprecedented power and authority to perform massive eavesdropping and wiretapping without oversight by any court or committee, to such an honorable, up-front, and honest guy like Alberto Gonzales?

Geez, what’s wrong with those Democrats?

Of course, there’s much more to it than just that. Read this article from Harper’s for a fuller picture of the fraud that the Republicans are–again!–trying to pull on all of us.