Re: A Sad Day For America: Senate Approves Telco Immunity

[Chris Blask <chris () blask org>]

Hi Jacob, folks,

Preface: I have been working from right-of-center in support of Obama since the beginning of the year, which places me 
on a fence on this topic.  The whole FISA thing is abhorent at its core, but simultaneously I am biased by believing 
that - a/ Obama is the right person for the job at this time and we need to get him in office, and - b/ that swapping 
the GOP out of the administration is the only way to make progress reversing all the momentum behind things like FISA.

Of course the PUMA folks (all 25 of them, and their sockpuppets) are using this opportunity to gnash their teeth about 
how Obama is now unelectable and McCain will sweep to the White House, which imo is a load of hogwash.  I think it is 
more likely that some folks who obsess with Liberal politics and the smaller group of us who obsess with infosec will 
drop a few voters from the roles while the general impression of being "tough on national security" will tip more 
fence-sitting centrists and Republicans into his camp.  Whether Obama's stance is political expediency or a more 
honorable and crafty plan I have no real idea, but I'm fairly certain that if McCain gets in office with Cheney in his 
cabinet FISA will seem like sweet custard pie in four years.

For those reasons I am aware that I am biased towards desiring that his current moves make sense in the longer-term 
scheme of things. Obviously, given that, I would hope that thoughts from those in our little community here could help 
appropriately mitigate the outrage of the Left ("appropriately", because strategically it may well be that appropriate 
outrage will help serve to ensure the post-November momentum to undo the invasiveness of the current administration 
while not damaging the Dem presidential run) - but if my desires are shot down here then that is also an acceptable 
result.

--- On Wed, 7/9/08, Jacob Appelbaum <jacob () appelbaum net> wrote:
.d.
> I can't fucking believe this bullshit.
> Obama. What. The. Fuck? Where's your promised filibuster?

A DKOS diary on the reclist today speaks to the filibuster issue, as well as perhaps the political realities a 
presidential candidate faces (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/9/134251/6608/353/548821
).  Portions below:

"Obama Voted No On Immunity & Got FISA Right"

"Obama may have promised to support a filibuster of an earlier FISA bill that contained retroactive immunity for 
telecoms. But we all know that it takes 40 votes to sustain a filibuster. Obama may be the de-facto leader of the 
party, but ours a fractured party. And with so many conservative red-state-Dems in our party's caucus, plus others like 
Feinstein who are apparently too beholden to the powerful telecom companies in their states to vote the right way on 
this, a filibuster on this FISA bill was simply not a realistic possibility. The Dems could barely muster 40 votes for 
even the most watered down of all the immunity amendments. Obama and Senator Clinton both voted the right way on all 
three of them, and we progressives should all be proud of them for that.

"The FISA bill is obviously imperfect, but I do not believe that a serious Presidential candidate can afford to vote 
"no" on legislation that is intended to help prevent terrorist attacks. If Obama were to oppose the bill as a whole, he 
would be handing McCain--who didn't even bother to show up and vote today--a huge opening to scare voters and paint 
Obama as weak on terrorism."

My own diary on topic recently is here (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/26/17242/2600/575/542521).

Thoughts?

-chris
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