There's sad and then there's pathetic. In the course of voting for the Bush administration's detainee bill Thursday, Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson crossed that line.
How could a Democrat -- let alone 12 of them -- vote for legislation that denies people we hold in custody even the basic right of challenging their custody in federal court? Nelson, who's running for reelection in a red state but still leads his Republican challenger by 23 percentage points, said he just follows the lead of John McCain:
"I think people respect Sen. McCain on these issues," Nelson tells the New York Times, "and I think he probably represents the views of a lot of people in Nebraska."
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