Nuts!
So it looks like Jesse Jackson just Sister Souljaed himself. How's that for a nifty maneuver? Obama ought to send him a big basket of mixed nuts--sliced?-- as a thank you. Hell, throw in a basket for the good folks at FOX News while he's at it. They secretly mic the left reverend so that they can embarrass Big O and yet somehow manage to show their perpetually pants-wetting white audience that O is pissing off "Big Black" by standing up for family values.
I'd cheer but I'm still pretty pissed off at Big O for his FISA fold. Really inexcusable as a matter of principle. Now, I get that sometimes you have to sacrifice principle in politics for political gain. In Dem politics, I almost always take the fighters over the saints. But where's the frickin' gain? There is literally zero public constituency for the Dem position, plus passionate opposition in the base. Obama has a dozen other issues he can go (and has gone) "centrist" and actually reap pay off, making FISA utterly useless. Meanwhile, Bush gets a big win and the Dems look like pansies (again). I guess I just don't understand the politics here for either Obama or the Dem leadership in Congress. Congress is at 19% approval, and that's lower among Democrats than GOPers! Come on, take a page from the Bushies. When you've lost everyone, at least cater to your base--they're the only ones who even might change their minds. Harry Reid wimped out a long time ago, so I guess he's just following form. But Obama? Makes me want to cut his nuts off! Oops. I guess I'm not supposed to say that. Don't tell Sean and Bill-O.
posted by tenaciousmcd @ 12:46 AM
5 Comments:
I just don't get the FISA issue. A lot of libertarians I know are really fired up about it, and so I'm surely missing something major. I just can't get that angry about telecom immunity, and I hate the government I love civil disobedience more than any one I know. . .so explain to me why it makes you so mad?
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I'll butt in for TMcD and just say there's a little thing called the 4th Amendment, and there's another little thing called the Rule of Law. Granting retroactive immunity to those who broke the law to keep their big government contracts and to kiss King George's ass tore both to shreds. And now we'll never know just how far they went in breaking the law.
For more on this issue, see Glenn Greenwald over at Salon:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
The Greenwald stuff is a great read so far. Thanks a lot.
Wilson, I'll second Paul's comments, but I'd add this: transparency.
Right now we don't really know how extensive the Bush surveillance is. Unofficially, we know they're doing broad-based data mining and that they're listening to a lot of international calls, but we don't know how or who they're targeting. We don't know if they're listening in on people who (a) have clear links to terror, (b) have only suspicious associations, names, or calling patterns, or (c) anyone they damn well please. There is lots of room for abuse here. How do we know they're not listening in on political opponents, reporters, or lawyers who serve the Muslim community? How do we know they haven't wrapped in a lot of innocent Americans who have no idea they're under watch and their information might now be in some database? We don't.
Telecom suits are the only way we get a look behind that wall. Even worse, reports are that the FISA bill actually extends Bush's surveillance powers in various ways with (at best) minimal oversight by the secret FISA court.
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