If Barack Obama is to be a centrist, that means that he is someone that will govern from the right...even in regards to past Republican administrations of Eisenhower, Nixon and (believe it or not) Reagan.

It has been pointed out time and again that as the Republican Party has moved ever rightward, the center did not hold. Democrats have not become more liberal over time but the counter balance of the Republican Party has moved so far right that the balance of the lever itself has shifted to a fulcrum that was once firmly on the right side of the ledger.

I will not be voting for Barack Obama. I will be voting for Dems in down ticket races and demanding that a strongly Dem congress hold an opposition party president in check and to account. If we can't count on a Dem congress to do that, we surely can not count on them to hold a same-party (at least putatively same-party) Barack Obama in check and to account.

I see Obama as the destroyer of all that the Democratic Party stands for. It took Nixon to go to China. It will take a Dem to finally and utterly gut the 4th amendment...and to destory Social Security...and to make the "slavery is freedom" part of 1984 a present day reality.

Obama? I'd rather take my chances with the devil that I know...

I prefer the McCain tax plan for one reason and one reason only: It would be dead on arrival. Secondary benefit of the DOA delivery would be a McCain presidency on the ropes and forced to work pragmatically with a Democratically controlled congress. Sounds good to me...

In this article and indeed in Senator Obama's own statements over the last week, the attitude is "Does anyone think the left is going to vote for McCain rather than Obama?"

Heads up to Obama: You and John McCain are not the only candidates in this race. Sure, one of you is going to win, but Obama does not get the vote of this life long liberal.

As I have said before, I'd rather have a strong Dem congress with an adversarial relationship with a weak opposition party president than to have a submissive congress prostrate before the whims of a man like Obama who seems to believe in nothing and has never found a tough issue he can't run away from...or vote "present" on.

The only way that Democrats/progressives/liberals are going to get their message across to Dems in congress and to Obama is by closing their wallets and (in the case of the presidential election) withholding their votes. That is exactly what I am going to do and exactly what I advise others to do.

What is most striking is that when the Congress was controlled by the GOP -- when the Senate was run by Bill Frist and the House by Denny Hastert -- the Bush administration attempted to have a bill passed very similar to the one that just passed today. But they were unable to do so. The administration had to wait until Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats took over Congress before being able to put a corrupt end to the scandal that began when, in December of 2005, the New York Times revealed that the President had been breaking the law for years by spying on Americans without the warrants required by law.

Wow. Just...wow! All these years since the Republicans took over Congress that I waited for Democrats to return to power, convinced that Democrats were somehow better, somehow different. Yet with a lame duck pResident with the lowest approval ratings this side of Nixon was able to get his way? Or maybe...it's the Democrats way too?

The AP headline over at MyWay.com says a lot: Senate bows to Bush, approves surveillance bill (Click my signature for the full story.)

I don't trust Bush with the powers of a king. Nor do I trust Barack Obama. Nor any man. Nor any woman.

What happened today was just wrong. This fall, the wrongness of it will be reflected in my behavior at the voting booth. If Dems are going to act like Republicans, I'm going to look for a different party.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Obama's sellout on FISA (and the death penalty and his odious remarks about mental distress made while using the GOP frame of "partial birth abortion") makes the devil I know a more attractive choice than the devil who has yet to reveal himself fully.

As I have said over and over, a president from the opposition party should at least be moderated by an adversarial Democratic congress. A Democratic congress would be nothing if not submissive to Obama. I'll take my chances on the adversarial relationship, so yes, I do have a place to go.

Matthew Yglesias? He apparently likes living in rivers...like De Nile. Never saw what others saw in Yglesias in the first place. He's a kid. I half expect him to become a raving right wing loon before he's 40. In any case, he isn't someone to look to for political wisdom...or wisdom of any sort.

Truthfully, I had expected to see Hillary Clinton cave on FISA today. I figured she would not want to show up the Demopublican nominee, and I figured a quid pro quo had been established on the Demopublican nominee's help with retiring her campaign debt. Apparently I was wrong and the lady is made of sterner stuff than I knew. Good on her.

Obama? Not for me. Like I said, better the devil that I know...