"I'd like to know at what point I can expect vindication in my support for a "change" agent."

You won't know until it happens, if it does happen. Maybe Obama does, and maybe he doesn't.

It's a bummer, but any Presidential candidate intending to actually take on the entrenched Washington powers can't win by saying so.

If Americans were more involved and less distracted by the difficulties of getting by, this could be different.

Remember what happened to Howard Dean after he publicly announced his intention to break up the media monopolies?

Hint: Google "The Dean Scream."

to sign up at my.barackobama.com, tell the community there that you oppose telecom immunity, and encourage them to oppose it with you.

The reaction runs about 2 to 1 asking me nicely to please STFU.

It's been quite an education.

For me, I have been pleased with the general response of the netroots in standing up to Obama over this. I know the apologists exist, but they are hardly dominant (at least not overwhelmingly so). The top diary on DailyKos for much of yesterday was explicitly critical of Obama for this move. Atrios named him wanker of the day. Digby worried Obama might want the power.

We must be neither the 4 year old right nor the 14 year old Nader-left or Paul-Right. It is always easy to find some non-viable candidate who remains pure: Of course they do, they have nothing to lose. The people who sit atop the polling, the ones who actually have a chance to be president are the ones who have the real incentives to make these compromises for expediency.

-Daniel De Groot

He[Obama] must think us idiots, but we can vote smarter than he imagines.

-- Occasional Observer

Voting a doomed Nader is what you call "vote smarter"?

Oh, now I remember why I voted for Nader in 2000.

were the widely despised British Crown "General Warrants" and "Writs of Assistance" enforced against the American colonials. Now, I spent a good bet of time yesterday slogging through the details of the HR 6304 which passed, and while IANAL, it's pretty clear to me that both of these contemptible tactical elements (which led directly to our 4th Amendment, btw) are embedded overtly in this legislation, in addition to the odious "private bill" aspects conferring blanket retroactive and prospective immunity on the telecoms.

... today as it was yesterday that the sickly right-wing faction be permanently removed from power and that there is never any such thing as the John McCain Administration".

Well yes, it has certainly not become any _less_ imperative that Republicans be removed from office. But it has become very much _more_ imperative that Democrats be prevented from holding office as well. For years, we have rightly regarded Bush's illegal wiretapping program and general disregard for the rule of law as sufficient grounds to disqualify him from holding office (not that there aren't many other reasons to vote him out of office, but this is sufficient). Now we have a candidate who supports legalizing this program. (He says he does not support immunity, but this may safely be disregarded as a lie. Perhaps he supports the program only for political purposes, but he does support it. And who says that Bush did not support it for political purposes as well). So why should we regard this new candidate as qualified for holding office? More qualified than McCain? Of course. But he and his party still fail the minimal test. The problem is not that the Democrat isn't the dream candidate. The problem is that a candidate who supports the Democratic party in these things cannot even be regarded as a minimally decent option.

"But he would be better than McCain." No doubt he would, but this is not all must go into the calculation of cost and benefit. For by giving him our support, we silence ourselves precisely at the point where it would have mattered to speak. We will be all bark and no bite. They'll be able to rely on us to push the issue just so far as to remain ineffectual. That would even be alright, if the issue of liberty and the rule of law weren't so important by comparison.

It's either that he "chickened out" or -- as Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin asserts and Digby wonders -- Obama believes he will be President and wants these extreme powers for himself, no doubt, he believes, because he'll exercise them magnanimously, for our Own Good.

I'm reminded of when Frodo offered the Ring to Galadriel. She had better sense than to take it.

I had asked this in another post before, but didn't receive any response. I was wondering if this bill does get signed to law, that if there's any way for this to be legally challenged based on the premise of the Attorney General having so much power to retroactively dismiss lawsuits with little to no supporting rationale in doing so. It seems that the language in the latest decisions by SCOTUS on detainee treatment could easily be used in a similar manner to strike down this horrible FISA legislation as well. Any thoughts on that?

The other thought I had pertained to Obama's actions in the sense of the assumption that he may one day be president and have all these powers to himself. The problem with that is, it is merely an assumption, and Obama as well as his hardcore followers who are so dismissive of his support for this FISA bill need to realize that the foregone conclusion of Obama winning POTUS is, in of itself, terribly dangerous. God forbid, what would happen if McCain wins instead? Another neocon who's actually more to the extreme than Bush having this much surveillance power over Americans should scare even the most ardent Obama supporter from their attempts to marginalize Obama's statement. Because even if that is a remote possibility for McCain to win, that remoteness is enough to realize it should never happen. And last I checked, the GOP does tend to have a way with winning presidential elections, even when they're a bit unpopular.