There are two versions of the same tele- comm- unications bill on the desk of Majority Leader Harry Reid: one, which grants immunity to the telecoms, and another, which does not. Now both sides are afeared of a bill which will either, according to which side you fall on, will either grant immunity to a crime, or would compromise our nation’s security for some silly freedoms not even guaranteed in the Constitution.

Personally, I pray that they Senate does the right thing and errs on the side of caution.

Sure, there are a lot of people who say that if the telecoms haven’t broken any laws–as they claim–then they don’t need any immunity. But I worry. Let me just play Devil’s Advocate, something a Republican would never really do, but let’s just do it for sake of argument.

If they telecoms did “break” the law, but at the behest of our Commander Guy in the pursuit of the War on Terrah, and we were to hold them accountable, what kind of message would this send to others? What would possibly lawsuits do to the likes of Blackwater and Halliburton? If anyone on the street could hold corporations accountable, what would that do to our war effort or to the bottom line? I shudder at the thought. Companies like Mattel might have to provide toys sans plombe. That would be crazy.

This would like holding your doctor accountable for being drunk while performing open heart surgery. If the doctor thought you could sue him, how could he concentrate on your surgery after a night out on the town?

It would be like holding the President accountable for doing nothing while the country was under attack. Such a thing would be insane.

So let’s all just pray that the Republicans in the Senate will have the power to protect our poor telecoms.