Hi Glenn, Thanks for your excellent coverage of this hugely important issue.

I tried to connect with the FISA/Telecom Campaign through the two links you posted yesterday, but could not get through. Have you posted the URL so anyone interested could go there directly in case anyone else is having difficulty?

Also, I just called the Obama Campaign to voice concern about Obama's thin opposition to the Telecom Bill and his surprising support for Rep. Barrow (Option #6 after you dial the number Glenn posted,(866) 675-2008, for those of you who are interested in calling.) The campaign representative reported a huge call response, and the Senator is "taking note."

As Glenn so eloquently states, Senator Obama is not perfect and is certainly no paragon (either in word or deed).

Yes, we can be bitterly disappointed with his decision to back a certain Blue Dog, just as we are disappointed with his backing a certain Senator from CT.

But that shouldn't be the end of it, or of our helping challengers against those who enable the moral and legal monstrosity called the Bush Administration. Like it or not, this long, twilight struggle will be punctuated by disappointments like today.

Better we have faith in ourselves, and not make the mistake of investing it all in one person as the GOP seemingly does on a regular basis (Reagan, Gingrich, Bush, etc.).

As someone who used to enjoy the services of John Barrow as our city's only progressive liberal (yes, progressive liberal) commissioner it has been painful to watch him "Zell out" in Washington and morph into an almost-republican.

On the other hand it's worth mentioning that, in gerry mandered Georgia, Barrow's election was a small miracle since his republican designed district pairs coastal, liberal Savannah with a much bigger piece of deep blue South Georgia, that shares the same latitude with Savannah but nothing else. Barrow is a practitioner of realpolitik who could only have been elected through pandering to a constituency that will never read this post, and I'll take him over a Republican even if it does require a clothes pin on my nose.

It's tough down here and a hybrid blue dog with red spots is about the best we can do at this point.

I think your concept of establishing a handful of permanent demands agreed upon by everyone from Ron Paul to Billy Bragg is a good one.

Right now, we are reacting to events. Who is going to sum up the underlying principles, boil them down, and sell them? And repeat them until we all want to puke? Or until the Dems adopt some of them for real?

So let's assemble a list of demands we can boil down to 5 or so. I'll start.

NO AMNESTY FOR GOVERNMENT SPIES

NO TAXES FOR WAR

BRING THE TROOPS HOME

TALK SENSE TO IRAN

BALANCE THE BUDGET

This is a short list, obviously, but that's the point. Any success in any ONE of these will be major. If Congress can bring itself to stanch the flow of money to Blackwater and Exxon, it can do anything. Even balancing the budget would require a downgrade of the Iraq occupation in terms of funding.

Notice these are historically CONSERVATIVE demands. That's no accident.

No one has seen the bill except Hoyer, Bond, and Jello Jay and yet -

Wednesday, January 18, 2006:

Pelosi: ‘We Will Create the Most Open and Honest Government in History’

“Next we would end the ‘dead of night’ special interest provisions that turn bills into special-interest giveaways. Lawmakers must have the opportunity to read every bill before they vote on it. It’s common sense.”

(h/t Selise at Firedoglake)

contact info for all these traitorous gits can be found here:

http://windcatpond.blogspot.com/2008/06/one-minute-to-midnight.html

Mr. Greenwald,

I LOVE your ability to see beyond mere acts and behaviors such as Obama's incredulous endorsement of Blue Dog Dem John Barrow of Georgia's 12th District who is so clearly opposed to Obama's stated principles of government including no immunity for telecoms and near limitless Presidential powers to spy on Americans.

I love your optimism in the face of such contrarian behavior from principle on the part of Obama.

I love your warning to look not for a saviour, but to act to hold Obama's feet to the fire.

I so appreciate your admonition to readers to continue to practice democracy in the face of a "likely" Democratic Presidential and Congressional landslide in November. Not holding my breath, no matter how "likely."

Your column today, as is so often the case, is informative and democratic in its appeal for practicing democracy, for reminding us we do our leaders a great service by holding their feet to the fire, asking questions, demanding answers, expressing our concerns for the good of ourselves, our leaders, our country and the world.

Toni Marshall

Arnold, MD

And I'm also torn about what he's doing in the Barrow/Thomas race. And it is a very good point that the fact that Democrats have a comfortable statistical lead makes taking a possibly losing, principled, single-issue stand in this race more palpable (that congressional advantage, in fact, is one reason I currently feel comfortable refusing to vote for the party whose central leadership that took away my right to vote in Florida -- Obama's DNC).

All that said, the history of the 12th offers a highly pertinent, ironic lesson on the dangers of not fighting politics with politics. The Georgia Democratic Party saw its dominance rapidly erode because it was incompetent, and contemptuous of the electorate. They didn't just lose the state: they lost it overnight, and the Republicans then transformed a small electoral advantage into a gaping one through gerrymandering. Some black Democratic elected officials got into bed with the Republicans, accepting super-majority-black districts as their due, even though the re-draw weakened the Democrats overall, and then they took a hit with the subsequent re-draw. By not sticking with the Party and/or not listening to the people, various powers-that-be in the Georgia Democratic Party dug themselves a giant hole. The only thing that's kept the state from absolute fiscal insanity on the scale of Florida seems to be the fact that several Republican legislators really did earn the title "compassionate conservative." They didn't shred the state's safety net like their peers to the south.

So in the context of Georgia politics, Barrow's ability to hold his seat represents more than just another surplus Democratic congressman in Washington. In the long run, the Party itself in Georgia is so wounded that they can't afford to lose another district. I'm not saying that the telecom bill, or for that matter, the constitution, isn't important. I'm just saying there's a big, local picture here that needs to be acknowledged. Turning a deaf ear to the electorate is what got the Democrats in big trouble in Georgia in the first place, and it will take many, many years to undo the damage.