I am not real sure but, a robotic hireling needs to consider the heirs who be forced to suffer from the slime. It's this time on Earth (not pie in the sky politics) we are supposed to be protecting, and preserving as a safe, livable, world that we wish to live in. The next generation needs to be considered when living well.

This comes to mind. These critters spoil.

Milton had an very insidious line. Satan.

Why wish to have those human's traits?

Citizens should remember/consider it:

`The mind is its own place, and of itself

Makes a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

during the Gore campaign.

'Beyond its obsolescence, this "move-to-the-center" cliché ignores the extraordinary political climate prevailing in this country'

Glenn, how can you be so sure that the explanation for Democrat's behavior is that they are "ignoring" the way the wind blows? Or could it maybe possibly be that they are acutely aware of the teeming masses and rightly fear opening the door to them? Maybe they fear the people because fundamentally, the Democrats just do not differ that much in beliefs with the Republicans? In other words, they represent the same interests?

Just maybe?

It's becoming evident that the Democrats are once again poised to snatch defeat from the clutches of certain victory. If Obama's capitulating on such a fundamental issue of his campaign... on an issue with which more than 80% of America agrees... showing the same lack of resolve to fight back that most agree lost Kerry the '04 election... well, what is there to vote for?

I propose using any leftover funds from the current FISA campaign to call Obama to task so we have a clearer picture of his true intents. Keeping McSame out of the White House is far more important than any one person, and there are only a few weeks left before the candidate exchange policy expires.

Excellent post, Glenn. The undebatable 'soft center' premise of the corporate-censored media is one that the American people would cheer to see challenged.

By no means are the people of this country simply waiting for our politicians to decline to answer "Yes" or "No," in favor of the "safe" soft "center," before casting their votes for that inscrutable Maybe. Obviously, on the other hand, the corporations are holding out for that unprincipled Maybe, because that's the loophole through which their power continues to hold sway. And, of course, they own the media that's telling us what we want. What a sham and a fraud the self-serving corporate "conventional wisdom" continues to be - Barack Obama better wake up, and soon. There's no middle ground for corporate America; Obama's going to have to make his choice between the people and corporate power. Receiving accolades from the corporate-censored media for turning his back on the American people will come back to haunt Obama, if he chooses to continue down that path to the presidency.

Our potential leverage is Congress. - paul spencer

Indeed it is, paul (that's why you never hear the corporate-censored media explaining that to the American people; they're busy, instead, permanently entrenching the idea of a kingly president as the end-all, be-all "Decider" of our nation's future course).

With regard to FISA, as I've noted, we need to turn (or send on a field trip) 11 Senators of the 20 Democrats who voted to invoke cloture on the final Senate FISA bill - which included blanket immunity - in February. [The cloture vote on the motion to proceed last week is not a valid indicator of the pending cloture vote, post-amendments, on the bill itself, should the immunity provision not be stripped or modified.] Which also means holding February's 29 No votes (including Obama) during the final cloture vote July 8th. 41 "No" votes - should Kennedy be absent (39 if both Kennedy and McCain are absent) - will sustain the continuing filibuster objections of Dodd and Feingold on the next cloture vote July 8, should all three immunity-related amendments fail to pass that day.

These are the 20 Senators who may, or may not, be available to the public this week in their states [has anyone yet spotted a Senator home at work in public during this "District Work Period?"]:

Max Baucus, Evan Bayh, Tom Carper, Bob Casey, Kent Conrad, Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Inouye, Tim Johnson, Herb Kohl, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Claire McCaskill, Barbara Mikulski, Bill Nelson, Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Ken Salazar, Jim Webb, Sheldon Whitehouse

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=S891&position=all

The eleven I think we have the best chance of turning:

California's Dianne Feinstein

Delaware's Tom Carper

Florida's Bill Nelson

Indiana's Evan Bayh

Missouri's Claire McCaskill

Montana's Max Baucus

North Dakota's Kent Conrad

Pennsylvania's Bob Casey

Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse

Virginia's Jim Webb

Wisconsin's Herb Kohl

The six Senators here from California, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, Rhode Island and Wisconsin all have Democratic Senators from their own states on the other side of this issue. In Pennsylvania Casey's Republican counterpart (Specter) is clearly not happy with the FISA state of affairs regarding telecom immunity. That's seven Senators who have no local peer pressure to take the position they're taking, especially if the presumptive nominee of their party (for whom some of them are superdelegates) asks them to vote with him against cloture. [Pressuring Hawaii's Inouye and Colorado's Salazar may also be worth a shot.] It's not enough for Barack Obama simply to skip this cloture vote and to avoid lobbying his colleagues, though those are no doubt his preferred strategies at this point, judging by his past behavior on "national security" votes (though to Obama's credit, he made a point to cast votes on this in February, unlike Clinton).

So, hoped-for principled leadership on FISA from Obama aside, residents of those eleven states have a unique opportunity to apply some vital constituent pressure this week, which just might pay off with huge dividends for our Constitutional system of government on Tuesday, July 8th.

Hasn't John Dean backed away from his initial impression, based on a quick reading of the "compromise", that it left open the possibility of criminal prosecution? Also, given that after-the-fact immunizing a corporation from even being sued is, I believe, something radically new in the law, it's far from clear, at least to this attorney, how such a prosecution would proceed. And what would be the likelihood of success of finding a corporation guilty beyond a reasonable doubt after the President. both presidential candidates, and both houses of Congress have affirmed that no one can even make a legal claim that this corporation was liable under a preponderance of the evidence standard?

Obama made a promise to oppose telecom immunity. On the basis of that promise, people gave him money and votes. Rather than trying to discern some secret plan that Obama has not even hinted at -- at least Nixon had the decency to announce that he had a secret plan to end the Vietnam War -- Olbermann should consider whether his idol has committed fraud.

I was one of those who filled Glenn's e-mail box with pleas to address the Olbermann-Alter segment. I could not have hoped for a better job on his part, so devastating that the mainstream media figure he has exposed has felt compelled to respond, first on dailykos and now in his own forum. Olbermann deserves some credit for at least acknowledging the criticism and trying, albeit poorly, to address it. Alter, in contrast, appears to be lying low; perhaps he realizes that, unlike what Olbermann said, his pronouncements were indefensibly ignorant.