The fact that this FISA thing is coming shortly after the primary between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ended is fishy to me. Well, that by itself does nothing to my backroom smoke detector, but Obama's support of the bill definitely makes it twinge. If we accept as fact that Obama does not in his heart of hearts support this bill then there must be someone who had and possibly still has leverage over him that forced him to accept the compromise.
Let us examine the possibilities of whom that might be over the fold.
Let us first eliminate the obvious Republicans right now because they have less than zero leverage over Obama because any leverage they did have they would want to use to get McCain elected.
That only leaves two candidates who have obvious leverage - the Democratic leadership in Congress and Hillary Clinton. Let us leave the latter aside for the time being because examining the possibility of the former will make plain why we can rule a Clinton role in this out.
For starters, we need to identify who the main drivers behind telecom immunity in the Dem Caucus are. From my admittedly not comprehensive readings, I would say that it includes the following list: Steny Hoyer, Jay Rockefeller, and Diane Feinstein. Senator Reid likely belongs on that list as well, but his support would be inferred from his actions rather than his statements. Pelosi I'm torn on. Given her previous actions one could infer that she's in the same sort of boat as Obama, but it's harder to see who would have the kind of leverage necessary to force her into this. I mean, she could have simply played bad cop, let the weak kneed conservative dems blame it on her, and let the whole thing blow over. What we can say for sure is that if she was in the position where she was forced to accept a compromise, it happened the moment she put Hoyer in charge around the end of Feb beginning of Mar.
The important thing to note here is that everyone in the above paragraph is an important figure in the Democratic establishment. When they speak or pick a candidate they can swing multiple votes with them, and at least Reid and Pelosi had a high profile as holding out their endorsements until the very end. So what that means is that these people had leverage over Obama. Enough leverage to be able to force a Faustian bargain on the candidate as the primaries ended in order to guarantee that the campaign would come to a close as well; especially considering the proportional representation of Democratic primaries and how close Clinton was before the ruling on how FL and MI would be seated. Think about it, these are people who could have endorsed or at least pushed their supporters to endorse beginning after the Wisconsin primary that sealed Clinton's fate. This could definitely be done in such a way as to avoid any kind of media uproar or any accusations that they were trying to end the process prematurely. But they held out. The only reason for holding out that long that doesn't sound like bullshit spin is because they wanted to extract something from Obama. That something was quite probably his response to the FISA issue.
My guess would be that Obama didn't make the deal until he started treating the race as fait accompli - some time after NC and IN, when it became clear that he wouldn't be able to knock Hillary out completely on his own. Even if he didn't need a ton of institutional support to win by then it was clear that: Hillary was figuring out how to beat him (and John McCain was taking notes), she might be able to get FL and MI seated close to the way she wanted, and she was willing to take it to the convention. Regardless, I would definitely place the date before the committee meeting to decide the fate of FL and MI.
I would also tend to think that the fact that Feinstein was the one who facilitated Hillary Clinton's exit for the meeting at her house is fishy, but it could be coincidence. Regardless, it should be obvious why Clinton isn't a likely candidate for exerting this leverage - she had to be dragged from the race by her supporters, she wasn't making a deal.
Now, I would be remiss if I failed to point out at least one major flaw in the timeline I have constructed. According to this Google news search:
Feb 29, 2008 - A stark new Hillary Rodham Clinton ad portrays her as the leader voters want on the phone when crisis occurs in the middle of the night, ... Underscoring Obama's argument was an endorsement Friday from Sen. Jay Rockefeller, DW.Va., the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a ...
From Clinton Ad Stirs Waters - Forbes
. In order for this to be consistent with the theory one of three things has to be true: Obama cut the deal earlier than seems likely, Rockefeller wasn't contributing to the "leverage" (unlikely), or I have misidentified the leverage being used entirely. One commentator (sorry, can't recall who) pointed out the possibility that the leverage involved Obama's legislative agenda once in office. Settling the matter would involve a closer look at who endorsed when, and I don't have the time to learn all the names to figure out what FISA traitors held out on their endorsements.
Point being, taking this out on Obama, regardless of his motives, is counterproductive. He is not the primary mover in this play. As Kos said, it's time to start focusing on better dems, instead of just more dems. We can do that right away by donating to Glenn Greenwald's efforts to intervene in two primaries that are happening this year and cut into the long term support Steny Hoyer receives in his district.
Edit: remove parting shot that detracted from the diary.