Barack answers FISA critics

By Libby

Obama posted a statement on his website in response to the group there that is organizing in protest of his current position on the FISA capititulation bill. I thought it pretty much stunk. He says he'll "work with" Dodd and Bingaman to strike the telecom immunity, whatever that means, but otherwise he's just repeating the same misguided justifications he's been giving all week.

The Inspectors General report also provides a real mechanism for accountability and should not be discounted. It will allow a close look at past misconduct without hurdles that would exist in federal court because of classification issues. The recent investigation uncovering the illegal politicization of Justice Department hiring sets a strong example of the accountability that can come from a tough and thorough IG report.

And what exactly will come of that? It may well have exposed wrongdoing but it's not accountability. There's no consequence outside of temporary embarrassment and the perps just deny everything and go on their merry malfeasant way to continue to flaunt the law. He also repeats this canard.

The ability to monitor and track individuals who want to attack the United States is a vital counter-terrorism tool, and I'm persuaded that it is necessary to keep the American people safe -- particularly since certain electronic surveillance orders will begin to expire later this summer. Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise. I do so with the firm intention -- once I’m sworn in as President -- to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.

For the love of God, somebody send the man Glenn Greenwald's URL so he can grasp that we know this is not true and so should he. It's difficult to believe he doesn't know he's selling a load of BS. Judging from as far as I got in the comments, the true believers are buying it. But the few netrooters that weighed in that section aren't and note well that he won't lose our vote over it, but he is losing our respect and our enthusiasm. As one commenter put it so succinctly, we don't want a lesser of two evils candidate. We want to be proud to cast our vote for the next president.

I'll give him props for answering his critics directly but he's not making me proud right now. I'm withholding the campaign donation I intended to make from my stimulus check -- which I just received. Looking around the netroots I'm not the only one. I see even Kos is withholding money on the same premise. No one is feeling keen to reward bad behavior.

Comments

[Bill H.]

Well said. My sentiments precisely.

[j]

this is incomplete without filtering in the court case just decided in court on FISA

[Emocrat]

Indeed, well said.

I was seriously unimpressed with his response, which I saw on HuffPo. His lack of honesty was most illuminating if in a depressing fashion. If he wants to take that position, he should at least have the cojones to tell people why. His response simply doesn't.

There are other Dems running for House races (hint: Darcy Burner, etc) that need help and also are very deserving of it. As long as Obama is basically signaling he neither needs nor wants support from us, we can always put those resources to work elsewhere, yes?

The DCCC called our house this evening asking for money and we both told them we won't be giving to them this year after the FISA outrage. I feel sorry for the poor sod. He wasn't expecting that level of "NO!", but he seemed to understand, oddly enough. Perhaps he's heard that a few times now, eh?

[Dan]

Hi Libby. Happy 4th!

I've posted all Senators' contact information over here. The HTML for the table is available for download as a text file as well. Feel free to copy & paste it if so inspired.

[Libby]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. J, good point as Dan made on an earlier thread. Any Democrat that doesn't take that decision as a ticket to fight FISA is a fool and a wanker.

Dan, You're truly a marvel. Thanks for the link.

[smintheus]

It was a terrible response, avoided all the real issues. The only bright spot I see is that Obama seems to be perceiving ever so slowly how much he is damaging himself with his rush to the right. It's not just he's annoying the hell out of the left; he's also acquiring the reputation for flip flopping. His rapid damage control the other day on his statements about Iraq suggests that he realizes that he's undermining his brand name the more he tries to distance himself from, or finesse, his earlier statements.

Maybe he'll smarten up and knock it off now. Anyway, real leftists would be foolish to give him a pass on this.

Can't wait for the DCCC to call us asking for cash.

[Libby]

Hey Smin. I was just in a debate about this at Balloon Juice and someone made the point that it's the way he's framing his rhetoric that's all wrong.

He's adopting GOP lies instead of making a sharp distinction between the choices. I'm hoping it's just his inexperience and a new reliance on the CW experts that he's brought in for the general. It's early. One can only hope he'll go back to trusting his own gut instincts and learn some better framing -- soon.