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Kit Bond out of the loop

According to The Hill, Missouri’s Kit Bond - ranking GOP member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and reliable apologist for Bush administration intrusions on privacy and other bothers - finds himself on the outside of negotiations on surveillance legislation.

The Bush administration is talking directly with Democrats over rewriting the nation’s surveillance laws and leaving the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee out of the debate, a senior Senate Democrat said Wednesday.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said that negotiations were occurring without Sen. Kit Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the panel.

Wonder why that is?

Rockefeller said that Bond had made the talks more difficult by insisting he have private negotiations with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), a move Rockefeller called a “non-starter.”

“You know, Bond, he’s just complicating things,” Rockefeller said. “And I’ve never talked to him about [his one-on-one talks with Hoyer], so I don’t understand it.”

Sounds like somebody thinks he’s the assistant manager, instead of the assistant to the manager. At any rate, Vice Chairman Bond didn’t take the freeze-out well:

The possibility that talks were occurring between Democrats and the administration had recently angered Bond, who was concerned that a compromise was being hashed out without his input, according to a Republican senator who asked for anonymity.

This looks like a situation where the White House - perhaps sensing an ebb tide in Republican fortunes - just wants to get a deal on surveillance done quickly and has no time for stroking the egos of once-useful supporters.

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