Barack Obama's recapitulation regarding the extension of the FISA surveillance law should come as no surprise to any one especially in a capitalist system.
As good as Obama has been sounding to all of the desiccated liberal husks out there one immutable fact remains that is the basic foundation of all political campaigns...you have to get elected. Politics in the United States of America is a supreme juggling act. How do you keep all of the balls in the air and not drop any that could possibly affect the outcome? Or I know I'm going to piss off at least one self entitled group, but hopefully that group is inconsequential enough and I can throw them under the bus and still climb the mount to my destiny.
This has always been my reluctance to embrace Obama like a long lost father forgiving all past indiscretions because I am so desperate to believe in a savior. The American political system is all about selling snake oil to the masses. Obama makes a strategic move by accepting the compromised FISA bill trusting that his loyal followers will still see the big picture and not throw him under their buses and figure he might curry a few law and order McCain votes along the way.
The system is designed to be sold in the middle and Obama knows it. You can't get elected doing what is inherently right and sensible because Capitalism commoditizes everything in its path. And if money can be made it will. So Obama reverts to the DNA of a politician finding a somewhat solid middle ground to build his compromised hero system.
"This country is finished.", as George Carlin told Keith Olbermann last year and I believe he might be right. It has been sliding into the morass of cheap credit fomenting abiding fealty in the surface show as William James referred to it. All of our eggs are in one basket in a market economy as anything else that might resemble human dimension is sold at fire sale prices. Art, music, critical thinking has been remaindered in favor of gossip and sensationalism.
Obama is a victim as is every other office seeker and it will be increasingly difficult for him to remain true to his school as the general election campaign moves further down the road. The only way for true change to come is for a candidate to rise from the ashes and be willing to ferociously rattle the monolithic corporate cage that controls the vertical and horizontal of this country and speak with such raw honesty about the need for the public to take their heads out of their lattes and realize that the future is not in Ethanol, but in the potentiality of human capital, the cosmos' most precious element.