There’s no question that Barack Obama has been riding the wave of a generational zeitgeist, having captured in an elegant form the feelings of disgust and longing and sudden hardship of the younger half of America. There is no question about that. But even though that’s been the case until now…now, Barack Obama has cracked up on the shoals and rang out a tremendously discordant note.
The whole party has been riding on the crest of a high wave that promises to inundate and destroy the rot of a Washington Establishment that has failed us…dishonored our past and robbed us of the future we deserved and our children deserved. But we cannot forget that Barack Obama is but one man. And the Washington he hopes to lead is currently run entirely by the very people that have been instrumental in the failures that have so disappointed the nation. What has happened is that failures like Jay Rockefeller and Silvestre Reyes, and political strategies like those espoused by the Blue Dogs and the Democratic Leadership Council’s New Democrats, have reached up from beneath the sea foam and tossed Obama off his board. Obama is a skilled surfer of political waters, but he is not a world champion. Not yet, anyway.
It shouldn’t have been this way. Barack Obama is running against history, he’s running against the Clinton diehards, he’s running against the Common Wisdom of the punditocracy, he’s running against John McCain and the sitting president. He shouldn’t be forced to run against the leadership of his own party in Congress, as well. It is a failure of leadership on Pelosi, Reid, and Hoyer’s part to even put this added burden on Obama. But they put this burden on him nonetheless and we are forced to ask him to take on this burden. We are forced to ask him to take on this burden because he is our last line of defense. No one else has the power to stop the bulldozer that threatens to earth over our Fourth Amendment rights.
It is one thing for the Washington Establishment to forgive themselves for their prolonged heat fever in the post-September 11th world. They can excuse a certain amount of irrational exuberance for torture and ill-advised war and illegal warrantless surveillance. Washington does this sort of thing from time-to-time, when they find that they’ve overreached and gone off course. It’s morally abhorrent, yet it’s our peculiarly American way of maintaining our belief in ourselves. Washington can excuse themselves, but they absolutely cannot be permitted to do so at the expense of our rights, and the rights of our children. A Gerald Ford can pardon a Richard Nixon and a Poppy Bush can pardon the Iran-Contra crew, but they cannot make the crimes of Nixon and the crimes of Oliver North retroactively legal. This is not how this nation faces up to its defects. We sweep our defects under the rug but we don’t enshrine our defects in law.
And that is what Reid, Pelosi, and Hoyer now ask Obama to acquiesce to. A matzah ball that big can overflow the bowl. It is wrong to put the responsibility for preventing this miscarriage of justice on Barack Obama’s shoulders. Not now. Not with so much already on his plate. But they have done it. And now we must ask Obama to take a stand and undo what they have done.
Part of this is a basic misunderstanding. It’s a generational misunderstanding. It shouldn’t be, but it is. The older generation of Democrats should have learned from the mistakes of Richard Nixon. Rather, they should have learned from the near-miss we had in not forcing Nixon from office and cleaning up Washington. We almost lost our Republic back then. We came so close. But the older generation of Democrats only sees the failures of McGovern and Mondale and Dukakis. They are blind to what they prevented from happening and how incredibly important it was that they they did prevent it from happening.
For my generation of political activists, nothing is so sacred and nothing redeems the promise of America as much as the success in toppling Nixon, enacting reforms, and preserving our rights. It’s what we are grateful for. It’s our greatest debt to our mothers and fathers. And now our mothers and fathers’ generation of Democrats are giving it all away for less than a song.
The real new Democrats are civil libertarians, born into a more tolerant, multicultural, and technology-driven entrepreneurial egalitarianism. Reading our email and snooping on our cell phones is a form of privacy rape. I get the feeling that all but the newest members of Congress have no feel for why the blogosphere is howling with rage at the prospect of legalizing warrantless electronic searches. Perhaps they know why we don’t fall for their hapless justifications for capitulation, but they’re lost when they try to understand why we care so much.
The FISA bill is a most unwelcome intrusion in our journey to a new kind of politics. It just created a giant pile-up on the road from here to there. We have already demonstrated to our own satisfaction that, in fact, Father Does Not Know Best. When it comes to a new kind of politics, the train has already left the station. We know how to raise money. We know how to compete in any geographical location. We know how to win by running on our beliefs rather than away from them. We’ve built up the most commanding advantage in candidate recruitment, fundraising, and message in political memory. We are ready to steamroll the old guard and usher in a totally new generation of politics. And this is the gift you give us? Retroactive immunity and vastly increased police-state domestic spying powers?
I don’t know what Barack Obama is going to do, or even what he is capable of doing. I sincerely hope that he has the wisdom to surf the wave we’ve helped build for him. But if he doesn’t, or if he can’t, and he cracks up on the shoals, we’ll have Reid, Pelosi, and Hoyer to thank for it. They and the outdated anachronisms that make up the DLC and the Blue Dog Coalition are to blame.
Also available in orange.
Professor Turley has correctly ientified the source of this capitulation.He says that some key Democrats are basically covering their own asses.
Those Democrats like Nancy Pelosi,Hillary Clinton,Steny Hoyer and others are from the DLC/AIPAC wing of the party who were co-opted by the Bush admin9istration into eavesdropping on the grounds it will help in the War on Terror.
We may want to believe that Barack Obama is not beholden to special interests like AIPAC but his speech before that august body convinces me otherwise.
Don’t forget .. Pelosi … Harman and “Jello” Jay Rockefeller .. were given a virtual tour by the CIA of the so called black sites .. so they knew torture was going on and didn’t say a word .. and now Commander Codpiece has them over a barrel
Having been co-opted once, they’re not against being co-opted again and again especially if it means protecting their complicity. We need to vote them out of office.
Well said Booman, in orange or green! 🙂
Share your disgust and anger!
Well said. I’m incredibly deflated right now. Here’s to hoping Obama has the balls to get on the right side of this, though I highly doubt it. I doubt mean to sound absolutist but, per our Constitution, there really is only one side of this: the rule of law. Any other position is a perversion of that concept.
I think you’re being a bit too hard on Obama. We can’t expect him to stop this thing by himself, as a mere nominee for president.
My anger here is directed toward the “old timers”, Reid, Pelosi, and Hoyer. Obama cannot risk his candidacy by trying to block their capitulation to Bush and his national-security-at-any-cost paradigm.
Still, I am disappointed in Obama for saying that, on balance, the Protect America Act is a good bill. It is too much to ask him to fight it, but I did not expect him to stoop so low as to actually express his approval of it.
I never thought that Obama was our savior. But now it appears that he does not even have the wisdom and savvy to know when he should just wash his hands, and take the way of Pontius Pilate.
I agree about where the blame lies. I’m somewhat uncertain as to the reason. Are Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, and co. covering their asses due to complicity in domestic spying? Do they, as Booman suggests, simply not understand how violently their base is opposed to what they’ve done? Are they, like Clinton, opposed to the new way of politics? Do they simply not understand the new political environment?
If I were being charitable, I would say it’s a combination of all these factors. The political world’s changed around them in four short years, and they’ve somehow wound up in the driver’s cabin of a train that is flying past the moon. They’re trying desperately to find the rails, when what we need is people who can see that there aren’t any rails anymore.
I think Booman’s definitely right that this is going to seriously hurt Obama’s polls and fundraising. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a bigger dent than anything Clinton threw at him throughout the entire primary.
To a large extent Obama is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. On the one hand, if he comes out strongly against immunity, he risks the ire of those of his colleagues on whom he still, in some measure, depends for success. They have the keys to cause him great grief if they feel it’s necessary. We saw that with Mayor Nutter and the street-money deal.
On the other hand, though, he has asked us to take a great leap of faith in funding his campaign. In doing so he has become beholden to a huge special interest group called the American people. If he doesn’t go along with the wishes of the people funding his campaign — which is now us — he can find out in a hurry how fast his support can dry up.
And that’s not to mention the Republican strategists who are just waiting in the wings to torpedo him with ads claiming that he’s opening the door to terrorists, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda. That’s a very real concern when trying to appeal to vast stretches of people in this country, many of whom have no idea what FISA is but they suspect Obama of being a closet Muslim terrorist jihadder.
It’s a tough row to hoe. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes right now, although I like to think I know what I would do. But I’m not Obama, I don’t know what kind of a minefield he’s navigating, I don’t know what he’s thinking or who he’s talking to or what he plans to do. I’m just glad it’s him doing it. And let’s face it, he asked for the job. When he’s President he’s going to come up against stuff like this pretty much every single day, at least 1461 days in a row. And that’s only the first term.
He asked us to take a leap of faith in supporting him. I’m happy to take that leap. In return, all I’m asking is that he listen to my very real concerns, and act on them. And there are at last count somewhere close to two million of me, and not a one of us wants amnesty for the telcos, and not one of us wants anything as much as we want to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.
well said. you reminded me of Shakespeare in Love
Thank you. Being compared to Tom Stoppard is high praise indeed. That also happens to be one of our family’s favorite movie quotes.
:O)
(i’d find some space related quotes if any of this were rocket science).
Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, and co. simply do not believe that there is a new political environment. They believe that the Democratic Party can keep on playing the same game they’ve been playing since Clinton: collaborate with the Republicans while being assured that your base will be duped into supporting you no matter how far to the right you go.
Thus, Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, and co. get their bearings from, and share their mindset with, their opposite numbers in the Republican Party much more so than from their base, that is to say, us. As far as they are concerned, they are the rulers, and we are the ruled. What they are doing with this FISA bill is just making that clear.
Could someone explain how Obama would be risking anything by standing up for the Constitution and a position that a majority of the country supports? This isn’t wonky policy minutia regarding earmarks or, like someone else mentioned on another site, farm subsidies. It’s the Fourth FUCKING Amendment of the United States Constitution! Why should anyone believe he’s going to grow a spine when he’s President? He’s the de facto leader of the Democratic party, as such he should be able to make the passage of this abortion of democracy very difficult. If he wants my vote back, he will.
Maybe Stan Goff was right, as much as I’m uncomfortable to admit it; in order to defeat the Republicans, we first have to “bury the corpse of the Democratic party.”
In my opinion, this is bigger than any wedge issue or “third rail” we could come up with. This is about powerful corporations essentially buying their innocence, all the while protecting those who swore to uphold the Constitution and are truly responsible for the illegal activity. Corporate and government power working hand in hand to retroactively exonerate themselves from previous illegal activities. Pardon me while I hit up Merriam-Webster to recheck the definition of fascism.
I really think you’re overreacting here. I went out of my way to avoid having anything to do with AT&T after they gave money to Bush’s 2000 coronation, but since then I’ve gotten to appreciate them, since they are one of only two major cell phone providers operating in the US which use the world standard GSM. (The other one is T-Mobile.)
Let’s get real here. Even before Bush 2, it was common sense not to say anything that the government might find highly objectionable over the telephone, over what, in the movies, was called “an open line”. And when it comes to email, if you want privacy, it is possible to encrypt so that it is not worth the government’s effort to figure out what it is you wrote.
So even though the issue turns around the Fourth Amendment, it’s not as if we are talking about the US government literally braking into our homes without a warrant or reasonable cause, the way it routinely does in occupied Iraq. There is a world of difference between the evil of the telecom companies and Republican private security/oil firms like Halliburton. Rather than making such an issue over immunity for the telecoms, I would like the Democrats to go after all the privatized military firms that have been set up under Rumsfeld and Cheney.
Which is not to say that the telecoms intruding upon our privacy by conspiring with the Bush administration is not a serious problem. But I do think that that is less of a problem than the expansion of the military industrial complex that has occurred under Bush 2 with Democratic collaboration.
Honestly, the fight with the telcos over Network Neutrality is much more important than warrantless wiretapping. Warrantless wiretapping undermines the fourth Amendment, yes. Their attempts to destroy network neutrality undermine the first amendment.
Not yet, at least. Just because the violation of privacy doesn’t include kicking your door in, doesn’t make it any less a violation of your privacy. Eight years ago the debate surrounding torture, what little there was for obvious reasons, was about how bad, ineffective and illegal it is, now we debate the merits and effectiveness of it.
I can kind of see what your saying, but it is – to use a tired phrase – a slippery slope. Besides, it’s illegal and unconstitutional. I agree with you, the militarized state we live in is a huge problem, one I’m not sure we can solve and something that does need to addressed. But the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution was effectively purchased by telecom companies and that (not using this word lightly) smells of fascism. Which, in some ways, is the logical conclusion to the authoritarian tendencies this country has exhibited for some time. If we cannot defend and uphold the Constitution, the rest might as well be meaningless.
Show me where Obama’s base and likely supporters agree that the Fourth Amendment is up for debate and maybe I’ll understand his position. But I haven’t seen anything like that.
Yes, you’re right. I wasn’t thinking very clearly when I wrote that, and regretted entering into that line of thought later.
This is a matter of principle, not a question of how many liberties we should give away to acquire a false sense of security, or enable our candidate who is moving to the right much more sharply than is called for in the current political climate.
Certainly. Obama stands up and says “Hey, guys? I don’t want to run with this around my neck. Make it go away, kk?” Reid, Pelosi, Hoyer, and “Jello” Jay respond with “Well, seems that you’re too liberal and radical for this party. Americans don’t want a Muslim Liberal Radical in charge. I guess we backed the wrong horse. Hello, Senator Clinton’s office?” Under their command, enough superdelegates switch from Obama to Clinton to make the primary a toss-up again, resulting in a messy floor fight at the convention.
Probable end result: McCain victory in November, regardless of which Democrat wins the nomination.
Rationale: I think Reid, Pelosi, Hoyer, “Jello” Jay, and the rest of their little band of Chamberlain wanna-bes would’ve preferred “Dalek” Clinton on the ticket in November in the first place. That’s why they held off so long on supporting Obama: they were hoping that Clinton could deliver a knock-out punch. From now until the convention, when he becomes the party’s nominee fo’ realz, Obama’s in a very delicate position. He’s got a lot of theoretical weight, but if he leans on the wrong people at the wrong time, the superdelegates that he’s depending on for his victory evaporate.
This is, I think, why Obama’s been pandering to the party establishment – doing his dance with AIPAC, backing down on FISA, sponsoring Bush Dogs, etc. He knows they don’t want him and they’re still half-hoping to knife him in the back like they did Dean in 2004. And the establishment knows that he’s treading a fine line – if he gives them an excuse, they can off him. But if he cooperates with them too much, he’ll lose his grassroots support. Thus they’re pushing him, trying to force him to edge rightwards.
The netroots are up against a wall here – the earliest we’ll be able to apply our power and retaliate is 2010, and we absolutely cannot afford a McCain victory. On the other hand, look at Pelosi’s little gang of entrenched Reagan Democrats. Do you really think that band of lunatics would actually mind four years of McCain? They’d probably celebrate, and spend four years trying to wrangle an invitation to one of his infamous BBQs.
Of course, it’s possible that Obama’s really a DLC Dem in disguise, and is going to be trending solidly right from now until he leaves office. But I don’t think the evidence supports that. If he was, there’d be no reason for his erstwhile allies to drop a millstone like this around his neck.
That’s frightening! One more thing for me to worry about.
Whatever the reason, if the Democratic leadership was stupid enough to give the nomination to Clinton after Obama has won the primaries and gotten even Hillary Clinton’s support, they would literally destroy the party, They’re not that stupid.
Incidentally, whatever may be said for the others you mentioned, I see no evidence that Pelosi wanted Clinton. If you know of something, let us know.
I also think the extent to which Obama had to make deals to get SDs to back him is exaggerated. There’s a sort of circular logic here. Hillary appeared to be in a much better position to offer patronage, since she was expected to win. Once it became clear, at least to most SDs, that she could be beaten, I think it was their choice to get on the Obama bandwagon. He didn’t have to make deals.
You can say Obama’s been pandering to the party establishment if you want, but Obama right now IS the party establishment. Of course he has enemies both within and without the party. But the way I would put it is, he’s navigating the rockly shores of reality. The one thing you are right about is that this is a counterpunch from the forces we just beat. Interestingly, unless I missed it, I don’t believe we’ve yet heard anything from Hillary about this FISA bill.
I’m still hoping that Obama has enough political savy to see the trainwreck ahead, for what does he risk indeed? Reid, Pelosi, Hoyer that whole gang becomes more irrelevant with each new poll. Senator Obama is the next president of the United States barring some fatal contraction in his suppport among the fired up Patriots that have brought him this far. Why he’d have to pick and issue was crutial to the whole movement and then screw the pooch.
Surely he can’t be planning to do that?
Why are politicians beholden to the intelligence community? Come on, why is it so hard for people to figure out?
I love it. Poor little Obama, all his peeps just stacked up against him and what can we expect from him? The man can’t stand up against the people of his own party, and we expect him to lead the nation? He hasn’t even entered the race against the Republicans and he’s already failed, and everyone is making excuses for him. It’s Steny’s fault; it’s Nancy’s fault; it’s Reid fault. He’s the presumptive Democratic nominee and he can’t even lead his own party; doesn’t even make an effort to. This is someone I’m supposed to vote for.
He was Republican-lite from the start. I can’t believe you’re already making excuses for him and blaming others.
Well written and argued as always, BooMan.
I started to write a comment – but it turned into a post.
This a class war and no one wants to talk about it. The status quo vs the humbled masses is what this is all about. When I was kid in the 50s the rich were taxed and the poor just had enough for a much simpler life. I’m blessed with having fairly good health and I realize every day how important that is. If the CIA and the FBI start to monitor my life then they must have nothing else to do. But for me it is rich with four grand children, three children, and a wonderful wife.
What bothers me the most as it has from the 1950s is the sad truth that there are weapons that could end mankind’s existence. No matter how you cut it we are one nuclear weapon from chaos.We must avoid that at all costs. Nothing is more important than carrying on.
This is excellent, Boo. I don’t know anything about politics, but I am grateful to learn about it from people who know more than I do. It seems a lot like religion to me.
One thing I know – they’re just people. Of course I’m disappointed that Barack isn’t a savior or a king who can change the world instantly.
He’s just a very American leader who says if we work together we can achieve great things. I know that he’s way smarter than me and probably has a more generous heart, so I’m putting my faith in that he knows what he’s doing.
So many times the battle I want to see won is lost – thus we have Sam Alito on the Supreme Court and our soldiers remain in Iraq. In my olden age I’m learning to be less absolute about things, but right now this election MUST be won. What can I do to help that happen?
It will take time, we shall live to fight another day.
You are the sanest voice on the Internet. Thank you.
I do know what he’s capable of doing. He’s capable of standing up, casting his “nay” vote and affirming the trust his supporters have placed in him. It’s all I ask and I hope that he does.
Yeah, me too! He has a week to do that.
as usual you have hit the ball out of the park. there are a few points that could be challenged but why bother. the only challenge that i feel is worth pointing out is– retroactivity- this is where the O man has crashed! As you rightly point out,the brilliance of his campaign has been the generation of the more than a million contributers and the spark of excitement and hope that they have brought to the campaign.
These are his army and this act of capitulation regarding this retroactivity will bring him down.
Notice please that I have not resorted to my usual level of anger. why bother.
i just got a glimpse of the future of left wing obamablogs.
theres gonna be a lot of gnashing of teeth and disappointed teary eyed posts over the next few years if obama gets elected as the guy way up there on the pedestal falls off over and over again.
personally i think it was a smart move…now when we have the october surprise terrorist hit on america that the republicans are enabling so they can scare everyone back to voting for the incompetent and criminally mischievous republicans the dems can say they did everything they could to help avoid an attack….its cover…probably not enough cover….but its a start.
right. always govern as if we’re about to get blamed for a terrorist attack. Pure DLC b.s.
I think you’re giving him too much credit. To me, it is most likely that all of this came down essentially to cover Pelosi’s, Reid’s, Clinton’s(Bill), Harmon’s, Jello Jay’s and the bunch of them. They knew about the crimes and they would have been outed. Obama enabled them to keep it quiet and they will reward him for it in some way.
Me, I’m feeling like we’re all suffering from battered spouse syndrome. In one instance after another, after another we get kicked in the gut. But we keep convincing ourselves that he (they) are really good at heart and will try hard to be better to us if only we would . . . .
I call bullshit. Both Obama and Clinton would never have gotten to the top had the corporate interests been on board knowing that the boat would remain firmly floating along with no one to rock it. That’s why Edwards got taken down by a haircut. That’s why Dean got shafted by the media for a faux “scream” in a room where they honestly couldn’t hear him even with the sound system at full tilt.
I never thought that Obama was the messiah and warned everyone I knew not to get their hopes up. What so upsets me is that he’s proven me right so soon. I didn’t want to be right. That being said, cutting him slack for this and believing that he really embodies all the hopes and dreams of the progressive movement is a pipe dream. He’s one of them. He’s just slicker and more skilled than most. Believe in him if you want, but he will repeatedly abuse that trust and belief.
I’m now going to make a fresh set of “Josiah Bartlet is MY President” t-shirts and sweat shirts. I was hoping I would be able to retire them but it’s not looking like it.
And then there’s my congressman, Joe Sestak. Another one.
“Josiah Bartlet is MY President”
Would you make a set for me, too? I spent a good part of last year rewatching the series on DVD that our local library loans out for free. Got to see the ones I missed on TV. Every episode was accompanied by my wishful thinking. Damn!!!
At this point, I interpret the press release as saying “Give me until next week to try to fix this disgusting mess of a bill.”
OK, Barack, you have until next week. If it passes in its current form, I will have some serious reservations about your fitness for office.
The bill is unconstitutional. Barack Obama has been, at least for a period, a constitution professor at a law school. Surely he is aware of the constitutional questions about this bill, and its ex-post-facto get-out-of-jail free card which contravenes every component of the constitution. How is he going to address that?
I agree with comments above, it’s not just up to Obama to stop it and take a stance. Our way of governance has gotten so many layers deep into corruption and elitism, that our virtual protesting really doesn’t matter much. Certainly, actual protesting gets completely ignored, and doesn’t end up changing a thing. Letters and calls to our Congresspeople are about as effective a protest that we can get out of this system, but it’s not much. Voting is a travesty in this nation, and 7 years after the debacle of 2000, and 3 years after the debacle of Ohio in 2004 has not changed that one iota.
It’s up to us, the people of this nation, to take responsibility for our governance, and rip it away from the hands of the mega-millionaire media giants and heads of oil and defense corporations.
How? We’re so complacent here, I just don’t see it happening without revolution. Otherwise, we’ll be turning our nation into some surveilled science fiction nightmare of a movie.
I think it’s a tale that it will tell, unless there’s something strange going on.
I wonder how many people here have been in a leadership position when members don’t agree with you. There is a presumption that Obama should have all sorts of moral suasion because he’ll probably be the Dems’ nominee. And when my mom dies I’ll inherit an oil fortune. I still have to pay for my venti mocha at Starbucks.
More importantly, no one here seems capable of admitting to his/herself that the intelligence community is itself a unit of power in the political calculus. After all, the spying is a tool of the intelligence community, spying on citizens has always been a tool of oppression. Why wouldn’t someone in the oppression business want oppression tools? And how would they get more tools? By using the ones that they already possess. And yet people can’t get past imagined egos of Dems. All but one Repub voted for it. What’s with that, folks?
Granted, the debate changes once you admit that the intelligence community isn’t just something that Dubya uses from time to time. When the intelligence community is recognized for its power then you can begin to understand why politicians kowtow to it.
It’s not up to any one person to change this. It’s up to all of us. We will all have to make our anger and disgust over this trashing of the 4th Amendment known loud and clear. We have to keep fighting!
I tend to think the tsunami has been coming from the neocons for the last 7 years, and we’re up against yet another wave they’ve sent at us, and at the Congress. The neocons say: this is the meme, deal with it!
The Dem leaders, being reactive rather than proactive, knew they’d have to deal with this wave, retroactive immunity, at some point in time, and now’s the time. They couldn’t delay it again, and BLAM! the wave hits, and we’re all swept away. This is how the neocons have gotten everything they’ve wanted for the last 7 years, time and time again, by setting the agenda and watching the weaklings react, react, react, and please, please, please.
Why? Because the Dem leadership is in the pockets of corporate America just as much as the Republicans, and the neocons are the thinkers and attack dogs of the Republican tsunami.
In this case, Obama’s tsunami is not nearly as powerful as the neocon’s tsunami.
Here’s another thought: in contrast to Booman’s point about Nixon, I think a lot of the current mess stems from Iran-Contra, and the total failure to hold those responsible accountable. Rather than blaming this on the all-powerful intelligence community, I’m going to lay the blame at the feet of the political apathy of the age, the same apathy that created Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, Jello Jay, and all their cronies.
Well said, once again, BooMan.
More than failing to oppose the FISA capitulation, it was the pathetic statement Obama issued that really caused me to feel genuine despair. He was peddling the same bullshit that Pelosi, Hoyer, and the others are. It’s just an insult to our intelligence to try to tell us this was some kind of half-loaf compromise that yielded something for our side. You can try to put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig. Feingold said it best; this is capitulation.
Obama, like Pelosi et al, think we’re stupid and can’t read or think for ourselves. I can’t believe they expect us to accept their bullcrap, as if we were morons.
I think this is a great and brilliant post.
Thank you for it.
I am devastated by the events of Friday. The bill was released the previous evening and voted on the next morning.
As if it happened in the middle of the night. It was a totalitarian tactic for a totalitarian bill.
Because there is no public support for it. The action was a poster child for the divorce of Washington and the rest of the nation. They sat in their oligarchic bubble on this one, trying to figure out how to put one over on us.
Obama’s support of it shocked me … and yet, while we waited for it, I was thinking– How can he go against the Democratic leadership who just supported him for the nomination?
(I thought it was clear that Obama had a lot of superdelegate and leadership support over Hillary … and that they were just waiting for her to pull out.)
So how can he now turn on them?
But he’s a professor of Constitutional Law. We thought he would be clear on this issue.
If Obama let’s the Democratic leadership overtake him, he will sink like a stone. His favorable rating will sink to 17 percent. And yet how can he oppose those whose backing has given him the nomination?
I tend to disagree. The conventional wisdom is poison, but he holds the reigns right now. If he didn’t buy into the poison, this entire twisted line of pretzel logic wouldn’t be necessary. I do know what he’s capable of doing and I do know that he’s not doing it. Let’s not delude ourselves here.