It seems like a lot of the anger over FISA is being directed at our nominee rather than the House of Representatives where this piece of "legislation" was spawned.
The last time I looked, we were a Party, not one person. Why on earth didn't the House (which has a pretty good-sized majority of Democrats) have the back of our candidate so that he would not be set up to be attacked for his stand on FISA?
He is only one person. He alone cannot stop this awful bill and his voting against it would be a gift to the republicans that would keep on giving.
But some are acting like this is all his fault or that he can fix it by himself.
We can talk all we want about Obama's promises (or the promises we think he made --- I lose track) but the bottom line is that the Democratic leadership in the House let down our nominee and our party.
Obama could have sat this one out if the House had done their job and just sat on this bill. Instead they sent a deeply flawed piece of legislation on to the Senate where our nominee would have to vote on it.
I am not against making people take stands on things. A good politician will be able to create an issue database that includes positions that are safe, positions that are parsed and positions that are brave. They don't have to all be brave because we are electing a leader whose judgement we trust not just someone who can read a list of issues.
I agree with many people on this site that I would have preferred a stronger stand on FISA. However, for me it is not a deal breaker. In fact, there is probably nothing that Obama, now that he is our nominee, can do that will make me less than a 100% emphatic (still clicking the ATM) supporter when the alternative is ANY republican.
I quietly watched the early primary posts when we had 8 candidates. I was leaning Edwards but had not made a commitment until he dropped out. My state (Wisconsin) gave Obama one of his big post SuperDuper Tuesday bumps so I get to take some credit for his nomination. (One of those votes was mine).
One of the things that I noticed while I was watching and waiting to find a nominee were the projections that people were making onto Obama. As I observed it, I thought it would end up badly. There was no way that all the great things that were being attributed to an Obama presidency could be true. It was as though Obama was a blank slate that everyone was writing their own hopes on. Some of that came from the candidate (he is inspiring) but some of it came from his supporters who looked past (or ignored) things that did not fit their Obama-meme.
It is great to connect with a candidate and great to feel that he or she has all of your issues covered. It is also a little naive and does your candidate a disservice.
There were a couple of issues that kept me on the fence for a while. I will not go into them here because I come to praise Obama not bury him. They are trifling REALLY TRIFLING compared to what has happened to our country over the last 7 1/2 years and what another 4 years of republicans in the White House would do.
Its a no-brainer for me.
I wish it had been more important to the Democratic House and Senate leadership that we have a Democratic president.
Is there anyone here who thinks that if by some magic, the FISA bill is stripped of its immunity provision, Bush will sign it? No, he will veto it and we will have another month of FISA stories distracting from Obama's message. The people who are just waking up to the campaign do NOT want to hear about FISA. They want to hear what someone will do to help them keep their jobs, their pensions and their homes. Since McSame has nothing for them, it does not help our candidate to have to deal with this.
I respect the constitution and do not want it gutted on the hope that a future president or Congress will fix it. But we are going to have the FISA bill with or without a President Obama and I, for one, prefer that we have it with one.