Glenn Greenwald makes a good point in his Salon column today:

A special election was held in Illinois yesterday for the Congressional seat occupied forever by retiring GOP former House Speaker Denny Hastert. The district is bright red, having re-elected Hastert in 2006 with 60% and having voted for Bush’s 2004 re-election by a 55-45% margin. Nonetheless, the Democrat, Bill Foster, defeated the very wealthy GOP candidate, Jim Oberweis, by a 53-47% margin.

A couple of weeks ago, Matt Stoller asked Foster what his position was on telecom amnesty and the raging FISA controversy, and this is what the triumphant Democratic candidate said:

The President and his allies in Congress are playing politics with national security, and that’s wrong. Nobody is above the law and telecom companies who engaged in illegal surveillance should be held accountable, not given retroactive immunity. I flatly oppose giving these companies an out for cooperating with Alberto Gonzalez on short-circuiting the FISA courts and the rule of law.

No waffling or apology. He “flatly opposes” telecom amnesty and clearly condemned the GOP attack campaign as blatant fear-mongering. Not only that, but he also just won a House seat in a red district in the midst of an intense nationwide Republican campaign — supported by the political and media establishment — to depict House Democrats as Helping the Terrorists because (like Foster) they oppose immunity and warrantless eavesdropping.The lesson here is unavoidably clear. There is not, and there never has been, any substantial constituency in America clamoring for telecom amnesty or warrantless eavesdropping powers. The only factions that want that are found in the White House, the General Counsel’s office of AT&T and Verizon, and the keyboards of woefully out-of-touch Beltway establishment spokesmen such as Fred Hiatt, David Ignatius and Joe Klein. If/when the Democratic Congress vests in the President vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers and grants amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, it won’t be because doing so is politically necessary (and see Update below).

This isn’t to claim that Foster’s opposition to telecom amnesty was a decisive factor in his victory. His opposition to the Iraq War was the centerpiece of his campaign (so much for the establishment’s self-protective claim that the war they cheered on has lost its potency as an election issue). But what it does prove is that even in red districts, let alone in swing and Democratic districts, there is no political cost, and there may even be substantial political benefit, in standing against this deeply unpopular President, and for the rule of law and basic constitutional liberties. …

Just a few weeks ago, here is what losing GOP candidate Jim Oberweis said about FISA, telecom immunity and his victorious opponent (h/t Stoller, via email):

OBERWEIS TO FOSTER: PROTECT AMERICA, OR PROTECT TRIAL LAWYERS’ WALLETS?(BATAVIA, February 16) — GOP nominee Jim Oberweis today criticized the Democrat-led House of Representatives for failing to take up and pass the Protect America Act, a critical piece of legislation that allows our nation’s intelligence community to use the latest technology to surveil suspected terrorists, and challenged liberal Democrat Bill Foster to choose: would Foster have sided with Nancy Pelosi and the trial lawyers who provide the financial underpinnings of the Democratic Party, or with America’s intelligence community and the American citizens it protects on a daily basis?

“Yesterday, the liberal Democrats who now control the House of Representatives played politics with our national security — and today, America’s security is today at greater risk,” said Oberweis. . . . .

“So today I ask my opponent — if you had been a Member of Congress this week, and you had sat in that Democratic Caucus meeting on Wednesday, how would you have voted to instruct your leaders? Would you have sided with the trial lawyers, or with America’s intelligence community? Would you have voted to protect trial lawyers’ wallets, or to protect America? Would you have defended the extreme, or the mainstream?”

Foster swatted away those smears and answered those questions definitively. And he won in a red district. How irrational does someone have to be to continue to fear pitiful, discredited GOP attacks like this? They don’t even work in Denny Hastert’s district.