Strange Bedfellows

Joan Walsh “Betrayed by Obama”:

I actually have some sympathy for Obama. He was never the great progressive savior that his fans either thought he was, or peddled to their readers. While Arianna Huffington and Markos Moulitsas and Tom Hayden were hyping him as the progressive alternative to Hillary Clinton, Obama was getting away with backing a healthcare bill less progressive than Clinton’s, adopting GOP talking points on the Social Security “crisis” and double-talking on NAFTA. So why shouldn’t he think his “friends on the left” will put up with his abandoning other progressive causes?

I share Ms Walsh’s view of Obama.  Always have.  But, of course, the responsibility for the passage of the FISA legislation is not Obama’s alone.

Glenn Greenwald:

Historians writing about the Bush era were given a great gift yesterday — an iconic headline that explains so much of what has happened in this country over the last seven years:

Senate bows to Bush, approves surveillance bill

Their rationale for doing that is that it prevents the Republicans from depicting them as “weak,” because nothing exudes strength like bowing.

[…]

Yesterday’s episode also illustrates why I’ve been so ambivalent about campaigns such as those to demand that John Yoo lose his tenure. Although Yoo ought to be far outside of the mainstream of American political thought, he simply isn’t. The Democratic-led Congress yesterday just passed a bill by a wide margin that institutionalized Yoo’s signature theory — namely, that when the President orders something, then it is legal and proper, even if it’s against what Congress calls “the law.”

Why should we pretend that John Yoo is some sort of grotesque authoritarian aberration when his defining belief in presidential omnipotence is, to varying degrees, shared by the leaders of both parties? Yoo has long been mocked for his belief that the President — simply by uttering the magical phrase “National Security” — has the power to break the law, but Congress, yesterday, just passed a bill grounded in exactly that premise.

There are many things that one can say about what the Democrats did yesterday. Claiming that they showed how “strong” they are, or avoided being depicted by Republicans as “weak,” isn’t one of them.

[…]

John Cole makes the always-important point that to say that Democrats “surrendered” on this bill gives them too much credit in many cases. While some Democrats vote for measures like this out of standard, craven political fear, many — perhaps most — do so because they simply believe in the National Security and Surveillance State.  

On a more positive note, Howie Klein writes about (and lists) the 12 members of Congress and Congressional candidates who will receive $1,000 checks each from our Blue America fund for having stood very firm on the FISA bill. The list begins with Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd, and includes members of Congress from red states who nonetheless voted against the bill (Sen. Jon Tester of Montana); vulnerable freshmen who voted NAY (Rep. Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire); House members who are running for the Senate in tough states yet also voted NAY (Tom Allen in Maine and Rep. Tom Udall in New Mexico); and challengers who have been outspoken against telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping (Darcy Burner in Washington, Jim Hines in Connecticut and Rick Noriega in Texas).

Finally, this afternoon I’m going to interview Jameel Jaffer, the Director of the ACLU National Security Project, regarding the constitutional challenge the ACLU intends to bring against the FISA bill. I will post the podcast later this afternoon when it’s available. It’s important to recognize that yesterday’s defeat is not the end of anything. It should only fuel more resolute and resourceful battles in defense of these core political values.

It’s difficult for “outsiders” like me not to lose faith in the project that is America.  If not for Glenn Greenwald and people like him, for instance, the broad coalition that has formed to keep the FISA crimes before the American public by coordinating the Strange Bedfellows Money Bomb, I’d have to give my “faith” a respectful burial.

Footnote:  My critique of American politics should not be mistaken for a statement of confidence in the political governors of Canada.  There is no reason for such confidence.  The latest evidence that such confidence would be misplaced is the performance of our “leader” at the G8 summit and his continuing lack of concern about the treatment of Canadian child soldier Omar Khadr by the US government and the US military at Guantanamo Bay.  I hold the Canadian government responsible, by their silence and lack of action, for his torture.  Stephen Harper takes his orders from George W. Bush.  We are a colony of a foreign Empire again.  It just has a new name.

It’s sad.  It’s all so sad.  Let’s change it.  YES WE CAN!