Letters to the Editor
souriscriant
Published Letters: 97 Editor's Choice: 3
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Sigh.... repeat and revise statement to the War Room for the more educated crowd here
[Read the article: What Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Fred Hiatt mean by "bipartisanship"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Some Obamabots int he War Room are saying "well, he is against the controversial part..." my response was `The retroactive immunity wasn't THE controversial part, it was just the "rub your face in monkey manure you total cowards" part.'
For those of us who HOPEd, but did not really expect, that Obama really would, on principle, fulfill his oath to defend our Constitutional rights, this is simply his declaration that, just like many if not most other Democrats and just about all Republicans, principle will always come second to political expediency.
And, really, the primary process showed that presidential candidates who stand on principle, the Kucinichs, Dodds, and Pauls of the world, stay in the single digit realm at the poll booth. Remember, politicians are primarily experts at getting elected and staying in power. Obama is a damn good politician and his goal right now, first and foremost, is to win the election. We can still HOPE that, if he does gain power, that, on the whole, he will use more than abuse it.
Still, he is better than the opposition. But, if you had any HOPEs that this guy was something more noble and pure than any other wily politician, well, I think we just found out the answer.
No reason not to vote for him in the fall though, because even though he won't stand up to evil, at least he doesn't seem to actively promote it. And, it would be nice to again have a president who can put together a coherent sentence and who maybe has a chance of at least understanding the issues of the world. After all, as he always says, his candidacy is about HOPE, not realistic expectations.
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@Amity oh Amity... what happened to your sense of humor
[Read the article: What Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Fred Hiatt mean by "bipartisanship"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]souriscriant on harmless little old telecom amnesty
The retroactive immunity wasn't THE controversial part, it was just the "rub your face in monkey manure you total cowards" part.'
You're absolutely right, nearly everyone agrees that retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecom companies was really just a stunt designed to taunt liberals. It has no actual substance, and no real consequences in terms of justice, civil rights, and the rule of law. The civil liberties organizations that have been opposing the telecom immunity effort haven't given the amnesty provisions more than a passing thought.
note the THE in all caps emphasizing the singular nature of the word.... this was in response to "what's the matter with Obama's response, he is against the controversial part" that a bunch of knee-jerk defenders over there in the War Room were bleating.
And, to be honest, retroactive immunity isn't a problem if you buy into the basic logic of the bill... the "hey, those laws before were just outdated and silly, and since we now have finally gotten around to saying we really think that such wiretapping programs are ok, then in principle they shouldn't be punished just because we were slow about getting some old, no longer useful laws off the books..."
Now, you can talk about the rule of law, but, in general, if a law is really just detritus from another era, such as those laws about pulling your "horseless carriage" over to the side of the road if a horse balks at it, or anti-sodomy laws, or "whites only" laws during the 60s, enforcement of past infractions of these laws is not something you really want to strive for.
The basic problem is that this bill treats the 4th amendment as detritus from another era, and if you support that view, such as Obama is essentially doing with his statement, then what's the big deal about forgiving people who were just a few years ahead of you on that?
And everyone here, keep it up! The basic problem is that Presidential politics has completely overwhelmed local politics in this country (by dint of the national media), and it is your LOCAL representative where you have a chance of making changes. Congress is as powerful as it wants to be. The problem is, it is now largely populated by mindless rubberstampers.
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@The Fool
[Read the article: What Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Fred Hiatt mean by "bipartisanship"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The republicans have been proving for years that just because people don't agree with you on the issues doesn't mean they won't vote for you.
What IS a problem for a presidential candidate is if the members of your own party in Congress don't support you. Remember, Hillary was the beltway candidate, especially among the right leaning Dems, and if Obama now castigates nearly HALF of the Democratic congressmen, most of whom are not very enthusiastic about him trouncing their Chosen One in the primaries, that is not a good thing for his campaign. He'd rather lose the small numbers of people who actually won't vote for him based upon him weaseling out of opposing FISA than on losing the support of a large fraction of the Democratic Congress, ESPECIALLY those republican-lite ones from the battleground states.