What the moment required was the wholesale repudiation of Banana Republicanism. (The moment was 2006 to this election cycle.) Because the GOP itself will regain power. If it regains power while the same lovely Unitary-Executive tools are lying around, things will be even worse next time. The only way to stop that would have been to destroy the structure of the Bush-era GWOT apparatus and its precepts root and branch -- to visit political, professional and legal consequences on its architects.
Which, as Henley points out, the Democrats are bending over backward (and bending us over forward) to not, not, NOT, under any circumstances, do, at least in the way that really matters (Henley: "political consequences only exist if the offending party loses on the offending issue").
The Democrats have effectively turned "national security" into a political Möbius strip. The Busheviks established the "we have always been at war with Eurasia (and Magna Carta)" starting point. It was Democratic compromise and complicity which cut the political surface, put a half-twist on it, and re-glued it such that both major partisan paths lead back to that point.
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