Sigh. The biggest mistake is not just the vote, but thinking that he's already fighting a general election. The ONLY people paying attention to politics are the activists, political junkies, and well, you know, bloggers. Your base, Senator. And they actually might have forgiven a so-called "compromise" vote in October, if the polls in Ohio and Pennsylvania were close and McCain actually showed up to vote. But it's July. And he didn't.
And you've pissed. us. off.
Those of you who think Obama personally wiped his feet on the Constitution are overstating the case. I mean, he had a lot of help. And the Bill of Rights is locked up at Gitmo, in case you didn't notice.
Oh well, ma hunnies on the blogs, try to carry something happy with you today.
Brunella knows I have an ingrained Obama-support (based on a mixture of a pink T shirt and a new interest in the West Wing) and my support for him is entirely academic since I can't contribute to his coffers or vote, but I'm interested to know what he's done.
ReplyDeleteWill have to go and look at the Americas page of BBC news....
In my younger days, I was in a blue gal/red state situation as the only socialist pupil in an independent boarding school. In fact my History teacher seemed to blame me personally for Tony Blair's 1997 general election victory. So learning that Brunella thinks the London Review of Books is far too left wing to be my natural reading material was a shock. I need to regain my former radicalism! Do you think singing along with John, Paul, George and Ringo counts as a good start??
Oh Linda. Greetings from across the pond. Obama voted for the FISA bill, which in the end granted immunity to telecom companies who turned over phone records to the government based on, not a warrant, but a crayon-marked post-it note from the President.
ReplyDeleteUs "radicals" here in the colonies are feeling kind of betrayed, but I always knew Obama was too conservative for the blogosphere. It's like Rummy says, you fight with the army, or in this case the general, that you have, not that you wish you had.
And the fact that I can fit a quote from Donald Fucking Rumsfeld into this situation makes me depressed. More Beatles music, stat!
Golly. That story definitely didn't make it on to the BBC website. The situation resonates with British politics: Labour had the leaders they wanted in the 1980s.... and Britain had nearly 20 years of Thatcher followed by Major. Blair, by compromising on The Principles of The Labour Movement (tm), managed to wrest power from the Conservatives at last. And whatever has happened since, thank God he did.
ReplyDeletePardon my French (we should all speak a second language, you know) but he wiped his ASS on the Bill of Rights yesterday.
ReplyDeleteThis was a disgrace. A just-caught-marlin-flopping-on-the-deck example of betrayal.
He's the party's nominee. he's the party's LEADER. he could've chosen to lead. Instead, he chose surrender.
Shameful.
Yeah, I'm pissed.
-Ahem-
ReplyDeleteYes. You've nailed it.
Now....I'm getting on in years. And I've seen some "politically expedient" votes in my time. But I swear, this one knocked the stuffing out of me. And Hillary voted "nay" (If she was still in a primary race, would she have voted "aye"? I wonder...).
For months now I've been telling people that I feel like it's 1968 all over again. And that Obama is that "magic" candidate, the one that somehow transcends "politics as usual."
There's an old saying: there's no fool like an old fool.
--------
P.S. I give up trying to sign in. Rumpled Foreskin signing in anonymously
Unfortunately, it was a lose-lose situation with the vote. If he voted against FISA, the "liberal media" would be all over him for "helping the terrorist". Of course, those that claim that are unclear that the pre-Bush FISA allowed legal wiretapping with limited court approval. Now Bush can spy on all the Dems without court supervision. I wonder how many of these Dem votes were blackmailed.
ReplyDeletemayhap i am cynical- and i try not to be and i try hard to remember my newly minted buddhist tenets about trying to respect all humans as human beings and respect all living things. some days- it's harder than others. i truly don't believe anything is going to help america. i don't. voting hasn't done a damned thing in the last umpteen election cycles. the dems have proven again and again that they will cave to corporate interests. this has less to do with bush and more to do with election donations from the telecoms. there are a handful of people with integrity in our congress- with dennis k. leading the way and wexler- but not enough apparently to get anywhere. c'est la vie
ReplyDeleteGeek_guy, I respectfully disagree. Obama didn't have to vote for this bill to prevent any sort of media criticism ... they are going to go after him no matter WHAT he does, because they have already decided they want McCain. All Obama did with his vote was to add more fuel to the fire of a base already upset with him.
ReplyDeleteFISA, his comments on abortion, his plan to continue the 'faith-based' initiative program, etc.
He is pandering to people who will NEVER vote for him, at the expense of people who would (or should I say "might").
I received an email yesterday from a good friend who asked me to "please convince me why I should vote for Obama." I think it's only July and he has big problems of his own making.
BAC
Obama knew better. Blue Gal is right, very few people were paying attention, and he pissed that group (i.e., us) off. There was no excuse for this bill. The republicans couldn't pass it. No, they had to wait until the democrats got power and then it passed. Obama is a true constitutional scholar--he taught con law at U of Chicago for ten years--he knows better. He knows what this bill does to the 4th amendment, but winning the White House was more important. Which is insane, because there is no way taking the right position on FISA would have scuttled his campaign, and, in fact, McCain cited Obama's flip on FISA to show that he is a flip-flopper. Nice. Change we can believe in, my ass.
ReplyDeleteRight on, on all points.
ReplyDeleteAnd goddam, I love the Beatles, and that song just cooks.
BAC nailed it: "He is pandering to people who will NEVER vote for him, at the expense of people who would (or should I say "might")."
ReplyDeleteThis is the #1 problem of the Democrats -- the whole triangulation strategy. Remember, the triangulation strategy was invented by Dick Morris, a person who, aside from advising Clinton on his 1996 campaign, has primarily worked for far right wing Republicans. Republicans like Huckabee, William Weld, and Trent Lott. This is the man who likes to take credit for bringing "lifestyle marketing" to politics.
Why are the Democrats still implementing a strategy that everybody recognizes and everybody deplores? It only alienates and angers the Democratic Party base while everyone else simply views the Democrats as phonies.
In the end, though, how cold-bloodied calculating. Where we gonna go? Vote McCain? Only in his...dreams. Barr? I'm from Georgia. We know a thing or two about Barr. And then there's our real Georgia peach -- Cynthia McKinney, who is or soon will be the Green Party nominee. I think everybody remembers our former congresswoman -- badly.
ReplyDeleteSo what's left? I thought the years of "holding my nose" while pulling the ballot switch were over.
Lawd, don't them long hairs look young in that video!
ReplyDeleteObama is a community organizer, and if that community is the beltway class, and they want a police state, we'll get it.
Citizens are not part of the community being organized, and never have been. Sorry 'bout that to all who believed otherwise.
in keeping with the good thoughts angle
ReplyDeleteand of course, that internet tradition of blogwhoring.