My apologies to LWM, WT, RMP, and anybody else who I terribly misinterpret (or use as a symbol rather than the reality). This is for all the adnotos etc. who are crying about what a great betrayal this is from Obama and how they could never vote for someone because the Constitution is too important and inviolate...

Simply put, your protestations of principle are falling on deaf ears for good reasons. You see, the old fogies remember all the "principled" grandstanders in college or wherever who sneered at doing small, practical things and instead wanted to make big symbolic gestures whose "success" was determined by whether it got any attention in the press rather on whether or not it actually did anything. For the most part, these "principled" loudmouths were the ones who went from being Yippies to Yuppies and then Reagan Democrats, nd are now worried more about their retirement investments than the Bill of Rights. Meanwhile, the people who you find 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 years later still fighting the fight were the ones who were not grandstanding but trying to do the little practical things. And whether they smile benevolently like WT, or dismiss you out of hand like LWM, or rise above it like RMP, you simply do not impress because they have seen too much of that in the past, and see what little good it has done and what little sincerity is truly there.

Whatever else you want to say about Obama, he is working his ass off trying to become president and be able to actually effect some significant change. He is risking his life (let us not pretend that a black man running for president is not at much more risk to the assassins bullet that a white man), his family, his health... he is laying it on the line.

If you really believe that Obama's support of the FISA bill was a sign of the end of the free world, it violates the inviolate, absolutely is a deal breaker and a sign of absolute tyranny, then I would expect you to sell everything you have, give it all to the ACLU or some other group fighting these attacks on the 4th amendment, and gone off to Washington, forced your way in Harry Reid's office and demanded he do something about it until you were dragged off to jail. Or some other equally risky, all or nothing action.

But no, you are just mouthing off on a blog comment section.

For the record, I gave $100 to the ACLU, $50 to People for the American Way, and have written my congresswoman and both my senators bout this the last time it came up and this time. I also wrote my congresswoman again to thank her for voting against this.

Not much for the defense of a fundamental freedom... but on the other hand, a hell of a lot more than your average American has done, and if 5% of citizens in this country did even half that much, this bill would be stopped cold.

getting someone from the left side of politics to not cast a vote is important. That's why every election they spend so much time and energy challenging people's right to vote in largely black districts, misleading them as to where and how to vote, and ll the other lovely tactics.

Get out your vote, keep the other guys voters from going to the polls. That IS the way the game is played...

Having spent much of my life in California, I feel entitled to give an unqualified psychobabble analysis of Olbermann based on minimal data.

This is a guy who first got angry about politics during the Monica Lewinsky travesty, and first made a name for himself by defending the smear by association and ad hominem attacks by the right wing on the Clintons.

Then, to those of us who aren't intimidated by the concept of mathematical probability, back in march it became apparent that Obama was the likely Democratic nominee, and was essentially the presumptive nominee after the Texas/Ohio primaries. The only way he could lose at that point was by having some scandal past or present make him unelectable. What Hillary did, of her own volition, was start an attack campaign on Obama of the kind she herself had been subjected to for many years and that K.O. had defended her from many times. Like a jilted lover, Olbermann became extraordinarily angry at Clinton and defensive of Obama.

Now, before he has fully recovered from the first "betrayal", his lover on the rebound, Obama, shows that he is a bit of a weasely cad himself.

And you want K.O. to accept that right away? Have some pity on the poor guy! He's feeling just like a lot of the people who were turned off by Hillary and turned to Obama for HOPE.