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[Tyrone Slothrop]

In TAPPED today, Sam Rosenfeld predicts that Republicans are up to their '02 tricks again, this time abandoning bipartisan intelligence reform in favor of a process and bill designed to advance GOP fortunes in the election:

MORE TROUBLE WITH H.R. 10. Matt's very right to predict that intelligence reform will go the way of most major legislation in the last few years, following to a tee the time-tested GOP formula: a horrible House bill and a decent Senate bill brought together in conference to produce more or less the same horrible House version, with the entire process politicized to the hilt. Not only can we count on that, we can also confidently expect the White House and House leadership to do everything it can to maximize the political advantage that can be extracted from the process in the next few weeks.
Today The Hill offers further evidence for the rumor I mentioned last week: that the Republicans might arrange an election-eve vote on a conference bill as a way to box the Dems into opposing the legislation, just like they did two years ago on the Homeland Security bill. You should read the whole piece, but here's the gist:

• House Republicans appear to have switched tactics from cooperation to confrontation with Democrats on intelligence reform, in a move that Democrats say reminds them of the GOP’s pre-election strategy in 2002.
  The change in tone, and perhaps in substance, comes a week after the GOP made bipartisan overtures and Republicans on the House Select Committee on Intelligence accepted several Democratic amendments to their reform bill.
  
  The tactic may mean House Republicans want to dare Democrats to vote against the legislation, just as they did so effectively with their bill creating the Homeland Security Department in 2002.
  
  Capitol Hill sources said House and Senate leaders might direct staff to draft a bill and then take the extraordinary step of reconvening Congress on Nov. 1, the eve of the election, to vote on the legislation.
  
  “That this is exactly what [White House adviser Karl] Rove and [Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken] Mehlman want. They want to replay the homeland-security fight of 2002,” said a Democratic aide, speaking on background.

In the past two days the House leadership has held two press conferences to vigorously promote its intelligence bill, and Democrats were not included in either. Instead, we heard ethics committee darling Tom DeLay and others offer some helpful advice to their colleagues across the aisle:

• ...At a second news conference in as many days that included no Democrats, House Republicans sternly challenged senators or other critics to explain why a single item in their bill should be changed.
  "Democrats . . . are trying to rip out the provisions that would make Americans safe," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said.

The Dems should have seen this coming the moment Dennis Hastert and company unveiled their intelligence reform bill two weeks ago. And, to be fair, they probably did -- there's just not much they're able to do about this process. But if Senate Republican conferees capitulate to the House leadership yet again on a conference bill, what's their excuse? What's the point of going through weeks of serious, grueling, constructive bipartisan negotiation and compromise, only to throw it all away in the end?

Nauseating. No. Shame.