How could any reasonable person do anything but utterly forswear Obama, his campaign, his family, and anyone in the same party as him? That is a logical, rational, and entirely justified reaction.

:). As a non-politician with no responsibility to a constituency or to varied elements in a constituency, I don't have to do the expedient thing of balancing interests, etc.; I don't have to compromise on anything, I can just do what is right (and pay any personal cost, if applicable).

I diagnose our problem as arising from being captive to a two party system.

Enough of us have to defect out of the Republican/Democratic system but still vote and get a third party to the position of automatically qualifying for the ballot.

Once such a party is viable - the barrier to entry has been removed - then people will try to use that party as the vehicle to fulfill their political ambitions. Once there is a third party, each party has to cultivate its core constituency, and cannot take them for granted, because they have no where else to go.

We blame the politicians for not voting on principles or conscience, but instead calculating the consequences. How can we then be the same?

For all those who vote for Obama (or McCain) because he meets your requirements for the Presidency, good for you. For all those who vote for one of these because he is the lesser of two evils, you're doing the same thing as happened in Congress today - basing your actions on what you think the consequences of that action will be rather than fearlessly doing what you know to be right.

It is important to be counted. Don't vote for Obama if that is your choice, but then write in a candidate. Since our elections are decided by a few percentage points in most cases, a even 10% valid ballots not captured by Republicans or Democrats even when there is no viable third party would be a significant thing.

The Bush administration yesterday invoked executive privilege and refused to turn over key documents sought by a House investigative committee, escalating a fight over the White House role in U.S. policy on greenhouse-gas emissions and ozone air quality standards.

Rep. Henry L. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called off a threatened contempt of Congress vote against Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson and a White House budget official while congressional Democrats decide how to respond.

from miaculpa; click on sig

The anti-FISA PAC will find going tough right now, because its targets have taken up positions "endorsed by both Presidential candidates", etc.

This is going to be a long battle that will not be over until the precedent set by the current FISA bill is overturned - i.e., someone is held accountable for Fourth Amendment violations.

As long as I am employed I pledge to support the PAC. If I am not employed, I will do the best I can.

Not asking for mission-creep, but are we going to do anything about this?

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba – forced out of the service in 2006 for trying to honestly investigate the atrocities at Abu Ghraib – was unequivocal in his statement in a new report by Physicians for Human Rights:

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account…The commander-in-chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture."

(click on signature)

The Bush administration has been wretchedly mistaken in its conception of executive power, deceitful in its push for war with Iraq and appalling in its scheming to make torture an instrument of state power. But a healthy democracy punishes policy mistakes, however egregious, and seeks redress for its societal wounds, however deep, at the ballot box and not in the prisoner's dock.

Quoted at link in sig.

Likewise, I suppose, the Bush Administration's policy of illegal wiretaps is to be handled.

Thanks for the link! I am afraid General Taguba will be a voice in the wilderness. I have an alternative narrative explaining the Democrats' actions. Namely they're following the idea that Bush & Co are guilty only of policy errors. What they're doing seems like capitulation to us, because we see much of this as criminal rather than policy error.

I believe that all that Obama is going to do, if he is successful in his bid for the Presidency, is redistribute the bread-and-circuses. He is not going to (and never was going to, we bad, our mistake for thinking otherwise) change the notion that government officials only commit policy errors, and not criminal actions.

The idea that the United States Government can possibly be complicit in criminal acts is an idea Obama explicitly discarded along with his one-time pastor Rev. Wright.

If you understand this then there is nothing to be disappointed in about Obama. There are only a handful of politicians, Kucinich among them, who know that the government can be criminal, and then it needs to be held to account by impeachment or by trials.