Second line should read "referendum on the Lisbon Treaty".

We just hated that bath water too much.

I hope ya'll enjoy President McCain.

Or you think some switch just got flipped from principled to un?

To paraphrase slightly Tricky Dick's unforgettable statement he had made about some Latin-American dictator: He is a goddamn sonovabitch but he is YOUR goddam sonovabitch.

By the way, thanks for reassuring us over and over again that we do not, in fact, face any grave threats. Phew.

There are several hundred comments posted here, and I hope I am not repeating what someone else has already said. Your post is necessary and on-target, as usual, but you fall short by not specifying by name those people who are giving Obama a pass on this. You have quoted from the critics, but you should also call out those who are trying to rationalize his capitiulation on the bill. You certainly have no qualms about calling out mainstream press outlets like the Pollitco when they fluff the powerful. We need to know who exactly these enablers are. They should be challenged directly on their opinions.

pow wow was right, the problem isn't Obama, it isn't even Bush, IT IS THE CONGRESS!!! A president is only as powerful as the Congress let's him be! The Constitution, and our system of checks and balances, places the Congress at the center, and for good reason. In our large nation, now numbering more than 300 Million (that's 300,000,000!) citizens, a single person can neither be chosen or held accountable in any meaningful way by the population. He is too distant, too remote, and, of necessity in trying to please half of the electorate, too compromised. But, there are 535 congresspeople. My congressperson's office is just a few blocks away, AND YOURS IS TOO. And, believe it or not, they DO listen to their constituents. What if even 100 people showed up at a congressperson's office demanding to know why they abandoned the Constitution? A thousand volunteers campaigning door to door could probably change an election result in just about any district. It is HARD to influence a president, much easier to influence a congresscritter. It is that critter's job to influence the president for you. And when a President tries to run amuck, it is the Congress' job to stop him.

The fundamental problem is the NATIONAL media, which makes us think that the national election is what is important, and almost completely ignore the local elections. But that is where the true power struggle can be fought and won, NOT THROUGH THE PRESIDENCY! And almost all of you have bought into the idea of the future depending on ONE person. Bush could only do what he did because YOU have voted into Congress SHEEP. Congress is supposed to set policy, not just be a big rubberstamp for policies made up by the President and his inner circle. But, except for Republicans when a Democrat is President, that's exactly what it has become.

The Act Blue idea is EXCELLENT! That is EXACTLY what needs to be done, but on a much bigger scale. But targeting three of the critters isn't enough. Work to expand it so that the constituents of EVERY SINGLE congressperson's, Democrat and Republican, who voted to spy on US knows that they sold their liberties to F-ing PHONE COMPANIES!

EVERYBODY hates the F'in phone companies. It should be a piece of cake.

Let's be honest about what Obama's support for the FISA "compromise" means and who it's aimed at.

By supporting this bill, which lets the honchos of both parties off the hook for their crimes in allowing Bush to run roughshod over the Constitution, Obama is once again signaling that he is a "good guy," and not a revolutionary. That he'll play ball. Telecom corporations are representative of corporate power at the very highest level and if they can be assuaged that Obama is not going to make waves, they will not unleash the fury on his campaign that they released on Howard Dean after he announced he would break up media monopolies in the '04 campaign. The Dean Scream - the result of one microphone's isolation of Dean's voice above the noise of a crowd - was an entirely fabricated, made-for-TV event, force-fed into the nation's consciousness by constant repetition. The lesson to be learned by a relative newcomer to national politics is, if General Electric doesn't like you, they will find a video of you picking your nose and broadcast it around the world and sponsor roundtable discussions of you as a Nose Picker and pundits will pontificate endlessly about whether a Proven Nose Picker can be elected. So what better way to assure General Electric that you are a team player than going along with a bill that absolves all the members of the only political party that matters - those in power - of their past "mistakes"?

Since Obama has no challenge on his left flank, he doesn't have to worry about the likes of Glenn Greenwald pointing out his hypocrisy. We've got nowhere to go. Any loss of votes to Ralph Nader or Bob Barr pales in comparison with the cuddly feeling he's creating in the highest rungs of political and corporate power. Just as Obama's main task between now and November is to reassure white people that he is non-threatening, so he must also reassure powers behind the throne (powers that have the ability to derail him with a shrug of their shoulders) that his talk of "change" is just that - talk. The best that progressives can hope for is that once he's in power Obama will return to the idealism that made us support him in the first place.

We might as well get used to this kind of song and dance because it is going to be the hallmark of the Obama presidency. Progressives and the masses will be given the sweet music of the symbolism of the first black president, but the lyrics will be written strictly for the Lawrence Welk crowd.

This is just smart politics. Greenwald is right to howl, but since the howling of defenders of the Constitution doesn't translate into a meaningful voting bloc, Obama is not going to spend much of his political capital trying to assuage us.