the primary obligation of the President is to "keep us safe," and -- most of all -- anyone who objects to or disagrees with any of that is a leftist purist ideologue who doesn't really care about national security. In other words, arguments and rhetoric that were once confined to Fox News/Bush-following precincts will now become mainstream Democratic argumentation in service of defending what Obama is doing. That's the most harmful part of this -- it trains the other half of the citizenry to now become fervent admirers and defenders of some rather extreme presidential "war powers." -- GG

Good thing you told everyone that they should vote for him and more Democrats huh? Fucking asshole. You were told this would happen and you were either too chicken shit or too stupid to acknowledge it.

Glenn, I think you are misjudging the situation when you say that

"our ability to have an impact on particular members of Congress who are also to blame is much greater, and while I don't care much if any one member of Congress loses his seat, I do care -- quite a bit -- that John McCain not be the next President."

Yes, McCain's being president is a bad scenario, but it would not be nearly as bad a scenario as having both parties united in their opposition to fundamental freedoms under a Democratic president. The outcome on the FISA issue is going to determine the thinking within the Democratic party not just on wiretapping, but on any number of related pseudo national security issues on which their instinct has been to emulate the cowardice of Republicans. If Obama wins after they pass telecom immunity, this would send the party off marching into a direction I don't even care to think about. --notveryhappy

Permalink Tuesday, June 17, 2008 08:20 PM

By the way, it's not "a conspiracy to support John McCain." It's based on a cost-benefit analysis. If the Democrats embrace authoritarian policies and we support them in this by rallying around them in the election (even if only reluctantly), we'll thereby ensure that there will be a long-lasting bipartisan authoritarian consensus in the U.S. Support for torture, warrantless surveillance, and a presidency that regards itself as above the law will simply be the accepted norm if the Democrats win the presidency in spite of their current support for this nonsense. By supporting a Democratic presidential contender even after the Democrats immunize the telecoms, we'd obliterate any meaningful opposition to Republicans on civil liberties. This outcome would be, I think, much worse than the risk of four years of McCain. -- notveryhappy

Permalink Monday, March 3, 2008 01:10 PM

If telecom immunity passes under Democratic watch, we'll need to do everything it takes to defeat Obama in the presidential election. I'd recommend voting for Nader, or not voting at all. We'll have to campaign against Democrats just as fiercely as against Republicans. Looking at current polling, it will not be too hard to ensure that Democrats won't win the presidency in 2008. Perhaps they'll be a different party in 2012 or 2016, but we cannot afford a president from a party that has just embraced authoritarianism. Of course, we'll have to make it clear that the responsibility for Obama's defeat falls on Hoyer and the rest of the congressional leadership. That will ensure that they lose their jobs after the election. Hoyer will simply be known as the man who cost Democrats the presidency. Putting pressure on individual Democrats is a certain losing strategy. The congressional Democrats will simply calibrate votes to make sure that the supporters of telecom immunity come from safe districts etc., so to campaign against individual Democrats is pretty much wasted energy. The only realistic option we have is to punish the party as a whole. It will have to cost them the presidency. The stupidest thing we could do now is to hesitate and give Democrats the benefit of the doubt as they embrace authoritarianism, just as people five years ago gave Republicans the benefit of the doubt as they embraced war. If we do this, we'll simply end up with a long-term authoritarian consensus between the two major parties. This is the breaking point, the point where we'll have to switch allegiances. -- notveryhappy

Permalink Tuesday, June 17, 2008 02:46 PM

I count myself among the "civil liberties" crowd and cannot really argue with Glenn's fierce critique of Obama and any other Dems or liberals who might consider Glenn's arguments as quibbles. But being an early and enthusiastic supporter of Obama and grateful to have him as President, (and also being 80 years old!) I struggle to take a longer view of this torturous mess he has inherited. It seems beyond argument that being President is inherently a political office and any President must grapple with "the politics" of any public policy initiatives in relationship to the sometimes thorny legal aspects of the President's responsibility to "defend the Constitution". I believe American democracy and civil responsibility has become so debased over the past 30 years, mostly the past 8, that we must still grapple with the psychic envelope of "the WAR on terror" and the inherently fearful nature of "terrorism" itself, the very purpose of "terrorism". I cringe when I hear Obama say that his first and last thoughts of the day are for "keeping America safe". Therein lies the core to our "consitutional" problems. And that vision of Presidential responsibility as the American safe-keeper is a political stance, a box, if you will, in which presidents are now trapped in an America spooked by terrorists at large in the world. Even an Obama fully aware of the destructive nature of fear as a basis for governing cannot escape its pervasiveness in, say, the Senate, Congress, Cheney on the airways, and the core basis of Fox News and much of the media in general. My mildly counter argument to Glenn's legitimate concerns would be to see how the Obama government plays out the Guantanamo mess over time and how he continues to grapple with the "security vs rule of law" politics that seem inescapable to me.