What Bob Johnson said.
Losing on the FISA thing sucks. Of course. But let's be clear here, while on principle it's been the right thing to do to fight it, the battle was lost months ago when Harry Reid made it clear it was a priority for him to pass the bill with the telecom immunity.
Should I have paid more attention to the bill? Should I have cared more? Sure. But there were a few reasons I didn't focus on it more than many of you did here at DKos. As Bob put it in his diary:
Here's what is making me crap my pants these days:
- A soaring unemployment rate
- A crashing stock market
- The looming failures of a number of huge banks
- Soaring oil prices
- Our looming environmental disaster
- A horribly broken (and broke) government, destroyed from the inside by the Bush-Cheney cabal
- The mess in Iraq
- Afghanistan going backwards - quickly
- A Republican nominee who is likely more incompetent, corrupt and dangerous than the current criminals occupying the Executive Branch
I'll add a few more off the top of my head without even trying: the mess of health care in this country, obscene levels of income and wealth inequality, a broken military, young people priced out of going to college, moving out on their own or having kids, a horribly conservative judiciary and several fundamental rights hanging on only by the health of the octogenarians on the Supreme Court, our horrible standing in world opinion, the intersection of our energy and food problems, a plummeting housing market, our devastated manufacturing base, the assault on the federal civil service and on the very idea of government competence, the war on science, the selling off of public goods and the looting of the public treasury on behalf of Bush cronies...there are probably a dozen other major crises we face and for which John McCain is completely unsuited to address, and would probably make worse.
These things--not FISA--are what sometimes keep me awake at night.
When I talk with family and friends who are generally well-informed citizens but not the kind of people who read Daily Kos, they never mention FISA. They talk about the homes in foreclosure on their block, or how they can't afford health care, or how much they want us out of Iraq. Now, there are plenty of other things that are important that most people don't mention. Just because, for instance, few people talk about nuclear proliferation doesn't mean it's not important. Prior to September 11th, 2001 there were few citizens without specialized knowledge who had even heard of Osama Bin Laden. And had anyone realized how bad things had gotten at FEMA before the Fall of 2005?
So, there is tremendous value in a small number of people paying close attention to the details, to things like telecom immunity in a FISA bill, for as the old saying suggests, that's where one finds the devil.
But there's another hoary old saying, about missing the forest for the trees. Does anyone believe that if Barack Obama was president, that this abomination of a bill would have been pushed on Congress? One can be unhappy with his statements on FISA and skeptical about his commitment to block it. However, it doesn't follow that one's possible reluctance to wage a battle against a bill for which the public isn't clamoring but about which the GOP could easily demagogue, is the same as being likely to push such a provision on the Congress as president.
I'm not happy about the FISA fold. But I view this as the last new and horrible act of the Bush administration. It's possible, of course, that Bush could bomb Iran, but it's probably not likely. And with Congress ready to shift to campaign mode, with it likely that Congress will not pass new appropriations bills but instead pass continuations of this years budgets and wait for a president more willing to deal honestly and fairly with Congress, Bush may be done with real initiatives that are new ways to screw up the country.
So, I'm focused on November. That doesn't mean I don't care about FISA. It just means I've decided that the fight is in front of us. The challenge is to elect Barack Obama president, and to give him huge majorities in Congress. You may think it's a cliche, but it's also the truth that the best guarantee against new and crappy laws like this FISA bill is more and better Democrats.
Unlike many at DKos, I am not disillusioned with the current Congress. I've been occasionally disappointed with them, but not disillusioned, because I always viewed winning Congress back in 2006 as not a way to really advance our agenda, but as a way to block Bush's. Unfortunately, that didn't always turn out the way we wanted. We never got withdrawal timetables for Iraq. We weren't able to override Bush's veto on expanding health insurance for kids. We had to struggle to pass a minimum wage increase, and we weren't able to block the FISA expansion with the telco immunity.
But this Congress has stopped some of the bleeding. Not all, absolutely not. But it's a step, and like the the last six years of the Clinton administration, when it was pitted against a recalcitrant Republican Congress, this Democratic Congress could mostly just offer resistance to a recalcitrant radical Republican president.
But that can change next year. Because of the excesses of the Republicans, the disdain with which people hold Bush and the GOP and the blame they attribute to them for those problems listed by Bob Johnson and myself, we're on the verge of a potentially huge victory in November. I want to make that victory as grand and transforming as possible.
The Democratic landslides of the elections of 1932 through 1936 and the landslide win of LBJ in 1964, which swelled the Democratic congressional majorities, were the most transforming elections since Lincoln's victories in 1860 and 1864. Lincoln brought the end of slavery and preserved the Union. FDR modernized the federal government, creating the main pillars of the New Deal like Social Security, the advancement of labor rights, the creation of the vast middle class, and the ability of the government to control the excesses of the markets. Later, with those majorities only slightly diminished, he led us in the victory over fascism. Johnson finished the work of Lincoln through the voting rights and civil rights acts, and he moved us further along in economic and social justice through the creation of important initiatives like Medicare.
Electing Barack Obama and giving him huge Congressional majorities will help reverse the damage caused by years of radical right misrule by the likes of Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and George W. Bush. It would give Democrats the mandate to do the things we need to do to turn around our country, and to save life on our planet.
The battle to focus on isn't the one we lost yesterday. The battle to focus on is the one we need to win in November. Then, after November, we need to push the Congressional Democrats and President Obama to fulfill their promises, and to fulfill our promise.
I'm disappointed we lost FISA. But I'm far more committed to doing what we need to do to have a huge win in November. I think most Democrats share my view. I hope most Kossacks will as well.