Kathy G. is disappointed but not surprised by Obama's response to the FISA bill (among other recent compromises). Meanwhile, via Glenn Greenwald, my man Chris Dodd is mixing it up again.
As usual, to me this seems like a no-brainer, politically. Telecom immunity is not an issue of conflicting political principles: the pro-immunity side is based on no principle whatsoever (or at least not one anyone is going to be willing to support in public...how well does "might makes right" poll?). But what do I know!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
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Because, as usual, the real issue is being obfuscated. OBAMA IS EXPOSING YOUR CHILDREN TO TAIRISTS!!! would be the headline on CNN.
Check out redstate.com on this if you doubt me (redstate.com is under contract to write all of CNN's headlines).
Yeah, but that only refers to the whole bill, right? The argument isn't that telecom immunity is a necessary part of national security, but that delaying the bill over immunity will be a risk to national security because of the important stuff that's in the rest of the bill.
To which you'd think Obama could say: 1. Obviously, national security does not hinge one way or the other on whether people can sue telecom or any other corporation at any time for any reason, so 2. if the rest of this bill is so important, then drop the immunity stuff so it can pass.
Also you had better hope someone is drafting legislation providing retroactive blog commenter immunity before I get a chance to sue you for the pain and suffering sustained as I was thoroughly trolled by the front page of redstate.com. (Thankfully, I came to my senses in time to stop cnn.com from loading.)
I think you are vastly overthinking this.
The bill is about killing terrorists, right? Therefore opposition to any single letter of the bill == hatred of America.
Now the weather.
Also, and I'm pretty sure I've seen this floated on Redstate the couple of times I've been there, I think the idea is this: If corporations don't illegally spy on us, who will? We have to put them above the Constitution or our very souls are forfeit.
So Obama should stick to issues over which either Republicans will not lie or CNN will not repeat those lies?
Not that I disagree with the reality of your portrayal, but it would seem to be equally applicable to any and every political action short of joining the GOP.
Good point. OTOH, this issue in particular would seem to be less open to correct reporting by corporate media outlets. Do they really want people even thinking about how much power and control big communication companies have, let alone opposing that power and control?
My sources inform me, that FISA restricts civil, but not criminal, cases. Also, this provision is probably unconstitutional. So perhaps the thinking on Obama's part is:
1) I need to support anti-terrorism if only to keep it from becoming An Issue.
2) The really terrible parts of this bill are unlikely to stand up to SCOTUS (and being a constitutional scholar, I ought to know).
3) And even if it did somehow, my AG could still bring a criminal case.
?
Please note: ,,,,,,
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