MJ Rosenberg makes the case at TPM Cafe:
No election in my time has been as remotely significant as this. I don't have to explain why to any liberal or progressive except to say that Obama's election is, literally, a matter of life and death for many Americans, not to mention God knows how many people worldwide.
Accordingly, it is silly to get bent out of shape when he says something he may or may not believe in order to win, or not yo be successfully swift-boated or race-baited. That is precisely what I want him to do, just as I wanted him to opt out of public financing.
I'm not saying we can't criticize. But we need to maintain perspective.
That means always remembering who and what the alternative to Obama is (this would have applied to a Democratic ticket led by any of our primary season candidates). Let Obama say what he wants to right through the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. I assume he has his fingers crossed behind his back anyway. You know, just like FDR when he promised to balance the budget or Lincoln when he said that he did not oppose slavery itself, just its extension.
In 2008, Vince Lombardi's mantra is more apt than ever. "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." That and getting America off its suicidal course.
I understand the argument, but I don't buy it with regard to the FISA/Telecom immunity. There are some issues that transcend tactical compromise. The precedent that this sets is far too dangerous, and it's amazing to me that Rosenberg or anyone who understands what is ailing us can be so dismissive of its toxic effects. This isn't just about catching the bad guys; it's about stopping and reversing what the bad guys have put in motion. To stop bills like this is precisely the reason we don't want the Republicans in office anymore, and what's the point off having Democrats in office when the Dem leadership is actively capitulating to the administration on an issue as central to the health of the republic as this one?
Are Obama's fingers crossed? It's one thing to play coy with one's position on an issue; it's another to actively support and vote for something you don't believe in. My fingers are crossed that he still might find a way to change his mind. He's the one who's supposed to be about changing the Beltway mindset, not succumbing to it.
Rosenberg is right about the need to get America off its suicidal course, but passing this bill is an unnecessary self-inflicted wound that increaes the bleeding and hastens us along that course. And the fact that Dem leadership is behind it is what is so deeply disturbing. Rosenberg seems to think that all will be well as soon as we have a Dem in the Oval Office again. But if the Dems are not going to do anything now to staunch the bleeding, why should we expect them to do it next year? And that Obama is collaborating with this is not something we should just shrug off and say, "Wait 'til January." No it's all about putting pressure on these guys now to counter the pressure they feel from the other side.
Obama knows what's at stake here, and he's playing it safe. He's playing 'prevent defense', and as I've written here before, that's a losing strategy. You have to keep the other side on its heels. I thought Obama understood that. I am convinced that most Americans will applaud the candidate that fights for what he believes in–it is starved for such a candidate. Americans are sick of these calculating, triangulating robo pols, and it's precisely in Obama's representation of himself as an alternative to that that makes him so appealling. It's as if he's stopped believing in what has got him this far.
The Pelosi/Bush deal here is so wrong for so many reasons–but mainly
for the way it shreds the fourth amendment. If constitutional lawyer Obama misses this important
opportunity to show what he's
made of, he will have badly blundered–it will be as
big a blunder as Kerry's or Clinton's vote to approve the war–probably worse. He needs to stay aggressive and keep the other guys on defense.
UPDATE: P.M. Carpenter takes a similar line to Rosenberg:
In short, progressives should get off Obama's back. He is, as Polman correctly noted, "simply doing what it takes to win." Progressives should follow suit and swallow their vocal idealism — precisely as they did on public financing — until the prize is won. Then they can hammer him leftward — although he's already there and is only trying to strategically hide it as best he can.
My point is that (1) this is bad strategy because it's old prevent-defense thinking, and (2) that you don't play politics with constitutional fundamentals. His decision about public financing and his decision about this Bush/Pelosi deal are in two different realms of importance. The fundamental mistake here is to see them both through a purely political tactical lens.
And it's fundamentally wrong to frame this as a left/right issue. Any principled conservative is as upset about this as Glenn Greenwald is. Watch this interview with Reagan conservative Bruce Fein. This YouTube is from October, but the essential of his critique then are as relevant now.
UPDATE 2: Greenwald on New Republic Syndrome:
The reason these posts are worth noting is because they so perfectly capture the mindset that needs to be undermined more than any other. It's this mentality that has destroyed the concept of checks and limits in our political system; it's why we have no real opposition party; and it's why the history of the Democrats over the last seven years has been to ignore and then endorse one extremist Bush policy after the next. It's because even as The New Republic Syndrome has been proven to be false and destructive over and over — even its practitioners have been forced to recognize that — it continues to be the guiding operating principle of the party's leadership.
The defining beliefs of this Syndrome are depressingly familiar, and incomparably destructive: Anything other than tiny, marginal opposition to the Right's agenda is un-Serious and radical. Objections to the demolition of core constitutional protections is shrill and hysterical. Protests against lawbreaking by our high government officials and corporations are disrespectful and disruptive. Challenging the Right's national security premises is too scary and politically costly. Those campaigning against Democratic politicians who endorse and enable the worst aspects of Bush extremism are "nuts," "need to have their heads examined," and are "exactly the sorts of fanatics who tore the party apart in the late 1960s and early 1970s." Those who oppose totally unprovoked and illegal wars are guilty of "abject pacifism."
It's exactly that mentality that has brought us to where we are as a country and a political system today. It's not at all surprising — and wouldn't have surprised the Founders in the least — that a radical and corrupt political faction (the Bush-led Right) has been able to take over parts of the Government and sought to consolidate political power. The expectation was that this would happen, and the solution was to devise a litany of checks — the Congress, the media, opposition parties — that would stand up to and vigorously oppose that faction and prevent it from running rampant.
New Republic Syndrome is another way of describing the strategies developed by insiders who have been already defeated in spirit. Again it's about changing the mindset. I'll vote for Obama no matter what because the alternative is grotesquely awful. But he will cease to intererst me as a politician and a man if he succumbs to the Beltway mindset he said he aims to change.
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