In 2002 and 2003, Senate and House ranking members and majority chairs on their respective intelligence committees, who were supposed to be providing oversight, were briefed about the extreme interrogation techniques including waterboarding being used on suspected terrorists.

The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included [Rep. Nancy] Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

In an article in the Washington Post was included the above and more: "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," said [Porter] Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."

It appears that these Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in discarding morality, ethics, and responsibility and instead chose to enable Bush and his politicized agencies to commit crimes against humanity, the Geneva Conventions and other lawbreaking.  Their complicity is sickening.

This is appalling and sad. It should break every Democrat's heart.  It also should make them angry.

As Glenn Greenwald writes, "....Why excuse or apologize for the profound failure of those who seek leadership positions on the Intelligence Committee — who, after all, are being briefed precisely because they are expected to act when they learn of illegal behavior — when they abdicate their responsibilities? That only encourages such malfeasance to continue. Powerful Committee members have all sorts of options for stopping such lawbreaking. They chose not to avail those options, either out of fear, indifference and — apparently in many cases — because they supported the lawbreaking..."

Yesterday, I wrote about Democratic Congressional leaders enabling Bush's continuing occupation of Iraq by refusing to use the power of the purse to cut funding and deliberately failing to include a troop withdrawal timeline in yet another appropriations bill in order to stop the ongoing Iraq debacle.

But these Democrats have also enabled Bush in his warrantless spying on American citizens, his military tribunals and suspension of habeas corpus, and so many other acts of contempt for the Constitution.  They have enabled his crimes.

We knew that fear mongering, Bushite Republicans on Capitol Hill, who, though in the minority still seem to be calling the shots, were Bush enablers.  However, now we know these Democrats were also willing accomplices.  They have forfeited their right to represent the American people.  They have forfeited their right to be members of the Democratic Party.  They should not be returned to Congress.