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Last week’s federal court ruling against the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping was a heartening reminder that the U.S. Constitution provides mechanisms against home-grown tyranny. Even when the executive branch claims monarchical powers, even when a rubber-stamp Congress abdicates its own responsibilities, there is an independent judiciary empowered to safeguard the Constitution and our rights. Back in June, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that even in wartime, the president can’t just scrap the concept of due process. The Constitution still lives.

But we mustn’t feel too comfortable about that.

After the Hamdan decision, some in the rubber-stamp Congress offered to legislate new presidential authority to dispense with due process. And, of course, the administration will appeal last week’s ruling. The case will undoubtedly reach the Supreme Court.

In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, only five of the nine Supreme Court justices favored limits on absolute presidential power. (Chief Justice Roberts didn’t participate. He had already ruled on the case in a lower court, coming down in favor of unlimited executive power.) By the time the warrantless wiretap case reaches the Court, Bush may have had a chance to name one or two new justices.

If the Constitution is to survive, we must provide life support. And right now, the best way to do that is to take Congress away from the rubber-stamp Republicans.

If the Republicans hold onto either house by even a single vote, they will declare a decisive mandate for whatever new offenses they wish to inflict on us. They’ll continue to fill the government with incompetents and cronies. They’ll move again to wreck Social Security. While ruinous deficits grow, they will move to exempt the richest Americans from taxation. They will fill the courts with pro-monarchical judges, and none of our rights will be safe.

We must take Congress away from them.

Talking Points Memo says the Lamont vs. Lieberman is a trap:

Rove may be goading Democrats into fighting like hell amongst themselves in Connecticut, but that doesn’t mean we have to take the bait.

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Lamont v. Lieberman is a carnival sideshow, a titilating and distracting spectacle. Rove is the carnival barker. So ignore the hoopla and keep moving on down the midway, folks. The main event is still to come, and it will be in places like Montana, Missouri, and Ohio. We’ve come too far to get side-tracked now.

I’ve given money to Sherrod Brown’s Senate campaign here in Ohio. There are a lot of races to be won, and it’s time to get serious about winning them.