Comment by advisedwang

21 hours ago

Wyden is the ranking D member of the intelligence committee (ie would be chair under a D senate). He's not some maverick bucking his party, this is the expression of the party position.

I wish this were true. My take after watching him for years is that he's uniquely equipped to evaluate these issues in a way his peers are not.

If that were the case, they'd have done something about it before. This doesn't appear to be new.

  • Fun fact, parties, and more importantly the people in them change and evolve over time. They aren't stagnant. For example, we see this with the Republican party which use to hold claim to things like law and order. But times change, and so do parties.

    So just because something was a certain way 20 years ago doesn't mean it's still that way today. That would be CRAZY to suggest that.

Given that a group of people is not typically of a single mind about the vast array of things for which a position might be expressed [0], the continued presence of Wyden reflects an ambivalence within the group and/or a controlled opposition to cite when the music stops.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice