"The reason it might hurt him [Obama] is because his party wouldn't have his back. With over two thirds of the members of his own party prepared to vote in favor of the bill, he has no political cover. If he opposes the bill, the question posed to him by every reporter and debate moderator would be: if the bill was so bad, why did over 2/3rds of the members of your own party think it was necessary to keep America safe?"
-- Anonymous Liberal
Although we have evidence that opposing telco immunity doesn't hurt Democrats in local races, do we have any evidence of that on the national level? Given that commander-in-chief and national security issues are much more prominent on the national level, and given that Obama (astoundingly) trails McCain by double digits on foreign policy and is viewed with suspicion by many (for inexperience as well as the crypto-muslim terrorist-sympathizing BS), perhaps Obama (in distinction to most other Democrats) would have been hurt by voting against the FISA bill. And especially because the party would (very likely) not have rallied behind him had he done so.
If this argument has some weight, perhaps it significantly mitigates Obama's guilt.
UPDATE: This diary was supposed to alleviate the pain, not inflame it. Please no name-calling in comments. Also, interesting to note that going by the DKOS poll the community is split right down the middle on this one.
This empirical point is in my view of the utmost importance. For if the netroot conventional wisdom is wrong that it wouldn't have hurt Obama to vote against FISA, then we were asking Obama to take a perhaps significant hit on a bill that would very likely have passed anyway.
Again, if this is right, we should recognize that the netroots demand was one primarily based on principle not pragmatism, although one indeed of important constitutional principle. Even so, if we believe (1) Obama very likely could not have stopped this bill and (2) there was a very significant chance of a no-vote coming back to hurt him, and (3) we are extremely hungry to win back the White House, then perhaps we can be more forgiving of Obama's choice -- a crude, nasty choice to be sure but one born of hard-nosed pragmatism.
I know many think this was merely a capitulation to DC consultant pablum, but I don't think so. I think this was a rare case of the stopped clock being right twice a day. Obama has many, many times gone against the conventional wisdom --- note his support for direct diplomacy with Iran as just one example.
In any case, I think we should note how little we have been able to accomplish despite controlling both the House and Senate. And this underscores how important having a Democrat in the White House is.
Given the recent weakness of Obama fundraising, please consider donating in the near future. Don't let victory slip away one more time.