We had better hope the Obama campaign is thinking two or three steps ahead of the Republicans because I guarantee you as much as they hate McCain, they aren't second guessing themselves.

We're Democrats, so we are incapable of blind faith. But can we at least get our guy elected before we start tearing him down?

I don't like the FISA bill, I wish Obama hadn't voted for it. But he did and there's no do-overs.

I'm angry, but I can't help but believe that the over riding concern now for liberals (I won't call myself a progressive) is to get Obama elected and expand the Congressional majority.

And strip Joe Lieberman of his chair.

I don't believe for a second that Obama is no different than McCain. For all its faults I believe (as does Noam Chomsky) that the Democratic party is better than the Republican party; on civil rights, health care, peace, gender rights etc.

Until November, I'm going to work to get Democrats elected. After that we can have our circular firing squad. But until then, I'll do nothing that hinders Democrats or helps Republicans getting elected.

What's with the "we?" Does this mean you're "me first" for the democrats doin' themselves in firing squad?

Well if you will, it's your call and your serve, and the end result will doubtless be, what you most deserve.

No, the sting of this vote won't fade, because since it involves constitutional rights, rather than policy or statutory law, it is a matter of fundamental principle, and in Obama's case, evidently, a cynical or cowardly unwillingness to stand up for fundamental principle. But being a resident of Illinois, I am not particularly surprised that you would think otherwise. Our current state Democratic Party is hardly a beacon of principled leadership.

Unfortunately for you, pragmatics and principles may well turn out to be inextricable for Obama. If he does have the good government types he seems so cavalier about alienating (see public funding as well as FISA), he may well lose the election waiting for that rush of young people that never seem to make their way to the polls.

I seem to remember George W. having some talk of being a "uniter" - quote: "I showed the people of Texas that I'm a uniter, not a divider. I refuse to play the politics of putting people into groups and pitting one group against another." From Salon 1999:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/05/06/bush/

Look how right wing George W. turned out to be...could it be, Obama will turn out to be much more leftist, once elected? It seems like he's using a Republican strategy to get elected now...maybe it stinks to high heaven, but...once in office...he'll revert back to more progressive positions...the way George W. reverted to type...????

From Glenn:

Hillary Clinton voted with 25 other Democrats against cloture (strangely, Clinton originally voted AYE on cloture, and then changed her vote to NAY; I'm trying to find out what explains that).

"Hey wait a minute... I can look BETTER then Obama on this one! Wait wait wait... no no no... I vote NO!"

Then Joan the little lap dog runs with it... arf!

Where to start?

Betraying the Constitution is not some small compromise that one can and should live with. Criticizing the Democratic nominee who has done so is not an example of uncompromising and foolish revolutionary romanticism.

This is a betrayal of core democratic - both small "d" and big "D" - principles.

Obama was never a progressive and the delusions of some of his supporters on this very basic reality is something I've had a hard time understanding.

Still, I could support Obama, albeit unenthusiastically, even if I felt he were the "lesser of two evils," if he stood firm on a few fundamentals. I'm not asking for a lot here. Just standing up for the Constitution. Basic stuff.

But no.

Meanwhile, Hillary is STILL being excoriated, even though she was the more progressive of the two. She gets crap for doing the right thing in the FISA vote. "She would have voted the same way as Obama if she were the nominee."

I call bullsh**. Suppositions like that have no basis in reality; they are a way of avoiding the cognitive dissonance of passionately supporting a candidate whose real stands don't match his True Believer's idealization of him.

Yeah, we can go back to AUMF (it always goes back to AUMF). I was one of those people marching on 2/03. I knew giving Bush any authority would end in disaster, and I was disgusted with the Democrats who voted for AUMF. I still think it was a horrendous decision. But Bush would have gone to war regardless of how Dems voted on AUMF. And most of the Dems voting on AUMF were not voting to go to war. They were voting to give the WH authority that they should not have given the White House, but what they were actually voting for was far short of an endorsement of a unilateral war. I get the impulse to demonstrate that one was strong on national security after 9/11. What I don't get is how any thinking person would believe that George Bush would use this sanction of increased authority wisely. I for one knew that he would not.

Regardless, Hillary's speech on AUMF is instructive. IT is not the warmongering speech that her haters like to pretend it is.

http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html

There is no ambiguity in this vote for the new FISA bill. The entire bill, not just the disputed telecom immunity language, is a shredding of the 4th Amendment and of its implied right of privacy. Moreover, this vote comes in a time when Bush is THE most unpopular President since Nixon. Voting for this bill isn't simply a crime against the Constitution, it is politically stupid, and unnecessary.

I don't get it.

And AKA Smith, I heart you. You are fighting the good fight here.

They aren't. They are thinking the way Democrats always do - like the public is in overwhelming support of their opponents and any dissent is going to cost them votes.

The public has overwhelmingly rejected the Republican party. It overwhelmingly rejected it in 2006, when the Democrats not only won Congress and half the Senate, but didn't lose a single seat.

The public is angry with a president who thinks he is above the law, and this includes the bulk of those calling themselves conservatives.

Heck it is so bad that there is a large movement within the Republican party that is too ashamed to admit it is Republican - on largely anonymous internet forums.

But, here are the Democrats pretending that this isn't what things are like right now. Here you have the Democrats, instead of taking this chance to put in place policies that the party has championed for decades, acting like Republican attack adds are something to be feared.

The only thing that can cost the Democrats in November is the impression that they are weak - and here we have the Democrats acting weak. It is the precise weakness that cost the Democrats in 2004.

If it was about Obama for whatever reason disagreeing with me on FISA, that would be different and that I can reconcile. But it isn't, it is about Obama being afraid of being seen as weak on terrorism, the exact same motivation that led the Democratic Party towards voting for a war in Iraq.

Who wants a president who can't stand firm on his principles, in the face of some hard words in a TV advert being run by his political opposition?