Even before the infamous Willie Horton ad ran in 1988, the Republics have sought to out-macho the Democratic candidate by presenting them as weak, timid, and feckless. This observation is cliché, not controversy.

So it's true enough that Democrats ought to expect more of the same.

That said, both Obama and devoted Obama supporters who've read The Book claim that Obama is a New and Improved™ candidate, a political adept or ninja with a profoundly learned, deep, and subtle political mind.

Presumably, he appreciates that his predecessors fell right on their faces in choosing to counter these crude appeals to hysteria by co-opting them with "me-too"ism. Each time, in taking the bait and trying to dislodge the hook by means of superficial disclaimers, and vainly trying to out-tough their opponent by frantically burnishing their Warlord/Law & Order bona fides, the Democrat wound up flopping impotently into the chum bucket.

Yet Obama seems to be working from the Shrum playbook-- allowing the Republics to define the terms, then making an end-run to the right. It's the percentage play. Somehow all of Obama's vaunted innovation and Change You Can Believe In begins and ends in how he's organized and funded his campaign. Obama certainly isn't running as a populist or progressive. And FWIW, I don't think it's an either/or of whether he's pandering to the right or if he's truly much more of a centrist (i.e., rightist) and social reactionary than most supporters wanted to believe. I think it's both.

I probably should consult my pastor first, I recall a fragment from the Gospels-- probably somewhere in the back-- in which Christ cautions against putting new wine in old skins. Perhaps it was just a popular oenological practice of the time, but I don't expect Obama's bouquet to improve if he continues his recent predilection for sewing himself up inside those old Republican-Lite skins.

I guess you could put it that way.

But beware, you may soon be set upon by those who will command, "Let he who is without sin sack the first stones."

I'm not a lawyer, but I have a smattering of legal knowledge gleaned from Watching Teevee. No, not "Law & Order"; I hearken back to the days of the original "People's Court", when Judge Joseph Wapner really did fulfill his mission of acquainting the public with the rudiments of law. (The succeeding generations of increasingly decadent melodramatic narcissists make no such pretense of serving such a civic or educational purpose, alas! But that's another rant.)

The concept that popped into my head is "joint and several liability"; in "People's Court" terms, it means that if a group of four kids vandalize your car, and you catch and sue one of them, that one is on the hook for all of the damages. The others are potentially liable too, though; it's just that the plaintiff can prevail against one defendant and be made whole. (The defendant may, in turn, sue his partners in crime for their share of the damages.)

The flip side of this concept is that legal responsibility or guilt isn't a zero-sum quantity. It isn't an either/or, i.e. either the telecoms or the corrupt government is truly guilty, or that legal redress need be apportioned according to an estimated degree of responsibility, as in assessing damages after an auto accident. It's not amenable to saying, "Well the telecoms are really only 25% responsible for getting dragged into this, so they should be shown deference and consideration." Both parties are equally and fully guilty.

The "People's Court" didn't touch upon federal racketeering and conspiracy laws much, for some reason, but in any case it's absurdly naïve to extend the pernicious anthropomorphization of corporations by reducing the telecoms to a straw honest businessman responding in good faith to the call of government authorities. The mutual assistance between government and telecoms is arguably a criminal conspiracy.

Telecommunications corporations are in no way comparable to an individual good citizen who selflessly and trustingly obeys government directives in a time of national crisis, and afterwards is unfairly held legally accountable. Anyone who believes that these corporations acted out of selfless altruism or patriotism is invited to send me a $5,000 non-refundable deposit on some swamp land in Florida-- hell,make it ten grand!

These corporations have the best legal counsel money can buy, and they and their peers (including once and future colleagues) on the government side knew or should have known that they were breaking the law-- a law created explicitly to eliminate the "gray area" within which illicit collusion could occur.

The telecoms are not the Good Thief attending the crucifixion of the Constitution, and ought not to be dealt with leniently. Nor should retroactive immunity be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations. If the rule of law can be rescued, there must be a disciplined refusal to countenance even the appearance of dispensing justice by the wink of the royal or ministerial eye.