Shuler: Yes To Big Telecom, Maybe To HRC, No to Torture

Our mixed bag Democrat has really been taking the schizoidal cake lately. Even his good votes have lately left me limp. Take the vote to override Bush’s veto on the the Intelligence Authorization Act, H.R. 2082 – Shuler said this in a press release:

I, like every other member of Congress, am committed to protecting our nation from terrorism. Our generals, including General Petraeus himself, however, have told us that torture is an ineffective tool in gaining useful and actionable information,” said Rep. Shuler

Shuler voted against torture, which, while hardly going out on a limb, is the right thing to do. However, Shuler leans on the St. Petraeus argument to make his case. Come on, Heath, you know torture is bad. Do you have to have General “I Heart Bush” Petraeus tell you that? If Petraeus said “Torture Rocks!”, would you support it?

Anyhoo. Shuler’s a superdelegate of course. He came out for John Edwards early and has been uncommitted since Edwards left the race. Hillary! had a dinner party and invited some of the Democratic Congressmen to come over and get shmoozed:

Trying to win over those who are undecided, Clinton wined and dined 17 superdelegates this week at her posh Washington home.

At the dinner was Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., who had once endorsed former Sen John Edwards’ presidential run, and represents a conservative district in western North Carolina.

He said he pointed out to Clinton that even with Edwards on the Democratic ticket in 2004, Bush-Cheney won his district with 60 percent of the vote.

How, Shuler asked Clinton, could she compete?

“I’ve been winning rural and swing districts all over the country,” Clinton told him, according to sources at the dinner. Shuler remains uncommitted.

Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., also attended the dinner at Clinton’s home, but he had a different question.

“If Sen. Obama finishes this process after all the states have participated and he’s still leading in the delegate count and he’s won more states and he has a higher popular vote, why would a superdelegate at that point choose to go the other way?” he asked Clinton.

Shuler’s going to keep on remaining undecided, leveraging his position for whatever he can get. I get it, but that hasn’t stopped me from wondering aloud to his staff whether it wouldn’t be a more principled position to simply agree to cast his “super” vote depending on how his constituents vote on May 6th.

So there’s your kinda-sorta good, your waffly-wavery maybe, and here’s your nakedly awful: Shuler was one of only five Democrats to support George W. Bush and his Republicans in protecting Big Telecom companies from obeying the law. I don’t know what kind of reach-around Shuler’s getting to ask his constituents to accept this blatant contempt for civil liberties, but I sure hope the ecstasy is worth the agony. Donna Edwards is a progressive Congresswoman and someone who recognizes that Democratic Party folks don’t like it when their representatives stupidly support President 20%. She says this about the Democratic victory in Bush and Shuler’s attempt to excuse Big Telecom from the law: