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Senator Obama, This Is -Not- Okay

By Alexa

From Barack Obama's website on Monday, July 7, our presumptive nominee ("better than McCain, si!") had this to say about his capitulation on FISA:

"This was not an easy call for me,"

--snip--

"And going forward, some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal-breaker. That's OK.

It is most definitely not OK, Senator Obama. It's your decision to vote for a bill that provides retroactive immunity for the telcoms and continues warrantless wiretapping. (Couldn't make this foolishness up; truth really is stranger than fiction.) It's your decision to raise your hand and voice your support for spying on American citizens.

What's NOT okay is your assumption, ass/u/me . . . about it being a "deal breaker . . . that's OK."

This is like one of those stories where someone is assaulted on the street, and one hundred witnesses do nothing, and in this case, the fourth amendment is going to be eviscerated tomorrow, and one hundred people are just going to watch it happen, because its just not their problem...[This is] coming out of the [bone] marrow of the fourth amendment, and it is going to hurt. (Source: Jonathan Turley.)

See, here's the thing, Senator. We, the people, the millions of voters and small donors who decided (very narrowly, it must be said) that you would be our nominee for president never gave you permission to set aside the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.  
That's our Constitution. And it's not OK for you to write off the people who put you on the ballot in your wrongheaded (and very recent) decision to demolish the Fourth Amendment.

You say you aren't flip-flopping. I want to know why you were against it before you were for it.

I want to know how you went from candidate to presumptive nominee to lame duck in less than a month but "it's not about politics."

• Over the past few weeks, Obama has angered voters by supporting compromise surveillance rules for the government's eavesdropping program.
• He also says he favors both a person's right to bear firearms and a government's right to regulate them.
• On Iraq, he has gone from hard-line opposition to the war to more nuanced rhetoric that calls for a troop drawdown process that could last 16 months. He has said that the safety of U.S. troops might force him to adjust that timetable.
• He's also broken with death penalty opponents when he disagreed with the Supreme Court's decision outlawing executions of people who rape, but don't kill, children.

After saying adios to my last GOTV group today, I thought about this "OK" biz and realize you played the left the way you're playing the right. I realized that your infamous dismissals of others could be said of you. I volunteered for you for over a year, and was a good volunteer, knew your policies and positions so well I could recite them in my sleep. But as you said of a man you considered a father figure:  Oh, snap! You're not the Barack Obama I thought I knew.

You knew you could crush the hopes of millions of progressives under your heel and nobody would even complain much because it's what we expect from Democrats.

You knew you could support retroactive immunity for the telcoms and not lose votes. That's why it is OK.

But it's never going to be OK. I have no doubt you'll be elected. And winning is all that really matters, right?

The weight of this wrong, the cost of betrayal. Can I borrow a dollar for a phone call, Senator? Feel free to listen in.

 

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on July 09, 2008 (boomark / email).