Hmm. By "sending a message" I do mean acting because it's about our appearance, whether legal or not, about stretching things to make a case. Your reasoning on international opinion is maybe the only reasonable reason for "sending a message" I have heard - mind, we could also make it clear the Clinton impeachment was an unfortunate political farce, and instead of sending messages, make sure we work to actually repair the damage done. Mind, if there's evidence to nail the responsible people for heavy 4th A. abuses, I think it needs to be done. But there is a huge mess these fine elected people were supposed to fix, and all I see are the pet projects of the last 6 years being put forward.

How about, as cheesetruck says, starting to dismantle the portions of the PATRIOT Act that could only have passed because of the panic at the time, and because practically no one read it? How about figuring out how to handle Iraq after the seemingly inevitable total withdrawal, without callously leaving the country to its own personal genocidal civil war? Our record on that sort of thing is really continuing to suck.

Congress really does have limited time. Wish they'd use it for more than figuring out how to make the next election even sweeter for themselves. My respect for the few senators and reps who have managed to cross the aisle, actually compromise, and get good things done that the country needs... well, it continues to grow.