The Republican Party may be headed full-steam for loserville this November, but that hasn’t stopped it from again leveraging the Democrats’ infamous insecurities over the War on Terror to pull off what is now being considered another capitulation by the majority party in congress.

Senate leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood at a podium Thursday calling the updated “terrorist surveillance” legislation “a compromise,” but the clear of the morning finds GOP early birds chirping of their latest victory. And why not – as Glen Greenwald fumes, not only does “the compromise” practically guarantee legal amnesty for all the telecom companies that helped the Bush Administration engage in warrantless wiretapping of Americans, but it codifies Bush’s new expanded spy powers for another five years.

Republicans on the Hill did not know what to think when Democrats swept into the majority in January 2007 on promises that it would pull troops out of Iraq and end the presidential power grab – including expanded federal surveillance of Americans. They’ve done neither, really, because the Democrats’ fear of being painted lily-livered terrorist-loving peaceniks is always underestimated, particularly during an election season (which these days, takes up the entire two years of a congressional cycle). Kudos to the Republican leadership, which only had to set the spark and watch the Democrats’ flimsy bravado burn.