I've been around the block more than a few times. I understand that we live in a relative world and that we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I knew all along that Obama had some obvious limitiations. I never dreamed in a million years, however, that he'd pull a Hoyer on FISA.
Pelosi's recent incoherent double talk supporting the cave in of her and her House "leadership" colleagues was a disappointment. It was, however, somewhat understandable. She's not an attorney, and she appears to only have a dim grasp of the issues involved w/ this bill. She has a ML who's desperate to pass it, and she has a restive bloc of Blue Dogs who currently hold the balance of power.
Obama has none of these excuses. He was prez of Harvard Law Review, and he studied under Lawrence Tribe in Cambridge. He taught Con Law at a top drawer law school. He fully understands the vices of this bill of particular and of retroactive immunity in particular. McJoan noted his prior opposition to immunity in her excellent FP diary.
Obama's fear that he might get outflanked on the right on the "security" issue overrode those prior statements. Even worse, his cave-in on this issue did the following:
- It gave credibility to the utterly fraudulent GOP meme.
- It undercut Feingold, Dodd, Durbin (his IL colleague) and other good Dems who have been willing to take a stand here.
- It guaranteed that the WH surveillance program, which appears to predate 9/11, will never be the subject of discovery in civil litigation.
- It ratified the Nixonian proposition that, "if the prez does it, it's not illegal."
- It allows the politics of fear to dictate the terms of political debate again.
Obama is starting to open up a visible lead in polls of both the popular vote and of the individual states. He will have a huge fundraising advantage. His opponent and his opponent's top advisers can't stop tripping over their respective tongues. It's clearly Obama's election to lose.
Given that set of circumstances, what's to lose by sticking to his prior position? Obama doesn't have to oppose passage of the bill as a whole. He doesn't even have to support the filibuster. He shouldn't however, cut the legs out from under his Senate colleagues who are placing conviction over politics.
We all knew that once the House firewall was breached by such a wide margin, final passage w/ immunity intact was very likely. We all knew that a filibuster was, at best, a shot in the dark. We all suspected that Obama would not be an active participant in a filibuster. We didn't, however, expect him to go all DiFi on us.
It was always obvious that Obama would never approach the populist fervor of Edwards. It was equally clear that he did not match Dodd's devout loyalty to the core principles of our nation's founding document. It was expected, however, that Obama would at least formally oppose the law being changed after the fact to cover up criminal behavior.
Telco immunity is the contemporary equivalent of the DC burglary statutes being stricken from the books in the aftermath of the Watergate break-in. It's an attack on the basic principle of separation of powers. Great Dems like Ervin, Rodino, and Cox would've recoiled in horror at this brazen executive power grab.
The open willingness of the likely next occupant of the Oval Office to accede in this power grab raises some troubling questions about how he will confront the vastly more difficult challenges and conflicts he will face starting next January.