Agreed this is not trivial, but Hillary's oppostion to FISA would be a disaster, and she would get well deserved derision for it. For one it would put Obama in the impossible position of crumbling against her opposition, which he could do but would wound him badly politically (oh how the MSM would make hay with that!!). For another, if he didn't give in it would give her supporters more fuel to not support Obama. By consequence of the two it would be seen as a play for 2012, the backlash of which would kill her in the crossfire. Ashes ashes they'd all come down. She doesn't have a choice now but to support the FISA 'compromise', which of course she's doing the right thing by doing (not that she wouldn't as the nominee, but whatever). She can try to pursuade Obama privately, but in public it would simply inflame divisions in the party, perhaps beyond repair. Feingold and Dodd are simply not in the same position.

I would see people's views on this as a litmus test. Are we satisfied to give up (or at least put at serious jeopardy of giving up) the Presidency and the Supreme Court justices it will nominate (and the habeas corpus and other Constitutional provisions it could eviscerate, to say nothing of Row v Wade), in an effort to try to push Obama to do the right thing here, however improbable it is that he would. I can't think of anything more foolheardy, but apparently I'm in the minority on this blog.

So you're saying that there is no difference between McCain and Obama now that Obama has signed onto FISA. You should note this is not the position Glenn is taking, and he is a constitutional lawyer, so perhaps it would be wise to listen to him there. I also think that should you ever find yourself detained indefinitely without recourse to the legal system, without being charged much less seeing the evidence supplied against you, you'll have a good long time to stew over whether the difference actually mattered (remembering that one Thomas dessent had it that indefinite detention of an American Citizen deemed by the executive as an unlawful combatant was "well within the president's war powers". Any guesses what would be 'just barely within'? I'm going to go with disolving the legislature and political opposition).

I disagree that Obama's statements about the court's ruling have anything to do with his move to the center, or that progressives have any reason to despair over them. We should put the kibosh on that meme now. All that he has said, he has also said in the past and has always posed the 'pragmatic centrist' on the 2nd amendment- which though activist was not a terrible decision all things considered- and for capital punishment in the case of child rape. In any case, progressives really shouldn't be in the position of caring about this- Obama is committed to naming justices in the mold of Breyer and Ginsberg, so his opinions on court decisions are not relevant (and btw, he did welcome the habeas decision).

Other than that though, I agree with your utterly dispiriting list except in that you forgot his reversing himself on Iran (perhaps that was more than two weeks ago, but it bears pointing out). He attacked Hillary for a position he now embraces- labeling the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. You also didn't mention the procedural stuff which I found distasteful and strategically stupid- disavowing public financing and town hall debates.

Basically, his New Republican handlers have gotten hold of him, (and you'll notice, they've cheered each of these moves), and he has let them rip the philosophical core from his candidacy. It's a cold calculation and I have no illusions about politicians, nor desires to banish such things. My problem is how poor a calculation has been made. Because even if he's correct politically- debatable, but I think less persuasively so than the left would have it, and certainly for a candidate that's so maligned by suspicions of being foreign/unAmerican from the get go- all he's doing is increasing his chances to become the President (probably marginally) at a significant cost of what he will be able to accomplish once he gets there. The whole power of the Presidency is the bully pulpit- if he's going to use it to flatter our collective prejudices, instead of to lead as he has been doing since wrapping up the nomination, then his Presidency will be an abject failure at a time that cries out desperately for leadership.

Say what you will about the reasons for the decline of our civilization, chief amongst them certainly has to be a genuine lack of ambition- a satisfaction with the scraps from Longshanks' table. It's not that we are not as gratified by great achievement as we ever were, it's that we are increasingly unwilling to risk the shiny objects safely within our grasp to reach for it.

PS I like that this post was cathartic, as opposed to caustic which better characterized some of the earlier versions (and at some point, we will have to accept and move on). In any case, the change in tone is most welcome.

It's nice to get a piece of news wherein Obama supports his base, instead of undercutting it. I think he deserves credit here for openly opposing the same sex proposition in California: http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/1051404.html. Standing up for the rights of people that by and large will vote for him anyway- something many of us expected more of from this candidate.