"They are calling on Mr. Obama to reverse his decision to endorse legislation supported by President Bush to expand the government's domestic spying powers while also providing legal protection to the telecommunication companies that worked with the National Security Agency's domestic wiretapping program after the Sept. 11 attacks"

Depending upon how you interpret "legal protection"....this bills allows immunity from civil judgement, NOT criminality....unless they change the wording before the final debate. Olbermann made this crystal clear in his most recent "special comment"

Check out www.truthout.org for the transcript.

I had just maxed out my legally allowable contribution to Senator Obama's primary campaign when he switched his position on the FISA legislation. That is the last money he will get from me until he deals directly with this issue and explains just what is his position. At the moment I agree with Arianna Huffington that the Senator's switch on several issues to the center is not smart politics. I am a decided independent. He has my vote, but he will have to stay true to the progressive issues he ardently supported in the primaries to continue receiving my money.

Oh, Obama. Very soon your name will be a saying for something. for example, "dont Obama on me!!" - meaning: dont get me really excited only to kick me in the nuts and let me down once you had me going...

As far as criminal charges, just memorize this: PARDON.

I once saw a greeting card that said "I feel so much better now that I've given up hope". Since this is real life and anything can happen, Barack Obama may very well win the presidency. America will pat itself on the back. At last, racism has been vanquished. We can go back to amusing our boredom because he will fix all our problems. Then months will pass; little or nothing will happen; we'll still be in Iraq; the insurance companies will spread around legal bribes called campaign contributions and bottle up any health care reform. AIPAC will hold their yearly conference with half of the congress crawling on their bellies to the speaker's dais. Nancy Pelosi will go shopping and Harry Reid will make a secret trip to Salt Lake City where he will huddle with powerful members of the Mormon Church, all Republicans, who will cut him in on numerous shady "entrepreneurial opportunities". The shit in 2009 will smell almost exactly like the shit in 2008, or '07, etc. It will gradually dawn on Americans that they've been had . . . again. And yet, they will go on voting for Republicans and Democrats. So, yes, let me say in advance: I feel so much better now that I've given up hope.

Then there is the small matter of the death penalty for child rapists, his gun stance, and now he wants to pour more federal money into religious groups. The Democrats do this every election. They lose their spines and end up not standing for anything....just trying to get elected....Obama desperately needs a new set of handlers before McCain is up in the polls by 20 points....not too distant future!

Obama is running for Bush's third term.

The only reason he has the lead is that the voters, not being too particularly concerned with issues (or we never would have had Reagan or Bush I or Bush II as presidents) haven't really noticed.

OBAMA HAS LET ME AND MY WIFE DOWN..HARD..WE ARE ALSO PROTESTING HIS "MCCAINISM" PROGRAM OF SUDDEN AND RADICAL POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY..WHICH WE ALL UNDERSTAND..BUT AS THE ABOVE STATES QUITE WELL..THIS IS A TEST...FISA IS A TEST..TRULY..OF ONES BASIC..BASIC..BASIC COMMITMENT TO THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION FOR CHISSAKES...THIS IS THE 4TH AMENDMENT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT ALLOWING TO BE...ESSENTIALLY..SCRAPPED...FOR WHAT? SOME INVISIBLE 'THREAT' IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH "AL QAEDA" THEY ARE DOING FAR LESS DAMAGE TO THE U.S. THAN THE BUSH DOCTRINE...DOES ANYONE OTHER THAN THE STUBBORN STUPIDS DENY THIS?

FUCK EM AN FEED EM FISH HEADS...BARACK...?? YOU HAVE LET US DOWN...BIG-TIME...WHY? FOR WHAT? WHY DO THIS? THAT IS THE REAL QUESTION..THIS IS NOT POLITICAL CENTRISM...THIS IS RIGHT WING CONSTITUTIONAL DESTRUCTION..THIS IS THE IMPOSING OF A DEFACTO SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY BASED ON AN ILLEGAL ABUSE OF THE 4TH AMENDMENT..

GUESS I'LL GO LOOK AT PORN NOW...TOO DEPRESSED TO DEAL WITH THE "NEWS" TODAY...WE SHOULD BE GETTING RX'S TO VALIUM INSTEAD OF A "TAX RELIEF" CHECK..LIKE WE WERE ALL ON GOVERNMENT WELFARE...GAWD IT'S AMAZING...THIS YEAR OF..INSTANT..POLITICAL SACRIFICE TO CORPORATE FASCISM..USUALLY THEY WAIT UNTIL THEY ARE AT LEAST IN OFFICE...NOT THIS TIME..NOW THE HYPOCRISY STARTS IN THE PRIMARIES...JEEZIS K-RIST...WHAT THE FUCK OBAMA?

LIVE FREE OR DIE!

Look, folks.

REALITY:

Anyone who hopes to get elected has to pose and preen and pretend a few things.

Straight talk is all beautiful, i.e. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. But in stupidized America, no market for 'em.

Sad but true: American reality is scrawled across a gas pump in magic marker:

"FUCK THE WAR. WHERE'S MY CHEAP GAS?"

The question you have to ask yourself, is Obama a World Citizen hoping to be elected, and then do what's right?

He is a World Citizen, the first since Jackie Kennedy who may reside in the White House. That's worth a lot. His relatives and his upbringing include many countries, many religions, many "races" (bogus concept anyway, "race").

I hope he will do what it takes to get elected, then do what's right. You can't tell from the pre-election postures. He has to please everyone to play this game.

I'll vote for him, almost certainly, but only time will tell. Remember: John F. Kennedy out-Hawked Nixon just to be elected.

Betrayed again! We have all been sold "down the river" to Big-Telco. I'll join the Greens.

Barack Obama's reversal on FISA by supporting legal immunity to those enabling the Bush-Dick régime to spy on Americans is unacceptable.

"The history of the present 'King George XLIII' is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States."

January 20, 2009 cannot come soon enough to bring an end to King George XLIII's reign of [t]error.

The will of the people must be heard.

Our nation must have change, change for the better.

lwfrey July 2nd, 2008 1:07 pm : I understand a candidate has to do some pandering to get elected. But at some point pandering becomes selling out. For example, if a candidate were to announce support for a governmental program to fund Neo-Nazi groups who want to start daycares I'd call that selling out.

Here are some links to our anti-FISA, pro-Obama group in case anyone wants to join us or just check us out:

http://get-fisa-right.wetpaint.com/

http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/SenatorObama-PleaseVoteAgainstFISA

Hold on everybody. . . .don't get overly excited. To get elected in this dumbed down America Mr. O has to move to the center. The real question is what will he do when he gets elected? My bet is that he will move back to the left. If not then perhaps Progressives will finally decide not to worry about winning the next election or the next one, but rather focus on building a solid Progressive Brand (and not support either party) that will win in the near future. Of course everything may fall apart in this country and we will finally see a real Annie-get-your-gun uprising.

Happy paths.

Obama may be pretending to be a centrist to become elected but this FISA vote is NOWWWW! If he gets elected he can't just say "OK, I don't like the FISA bill so I declare it DOA"-NO, it's law at least for most of his term. I see where his is getting chummy with Faith-based charities also so I suppose our tax dollars will continue to fund "abstinence only" and other faith-based stupidity. Man, take a step back and look at yourself, you ain't no progressive no mo.

Note please how the NY Times, and all of the major news media consistently recite (like James Risen again does) that the retroactive immunity being sought from Congress provides "legal protection for the telecommunication companies that worked with the National Security Agency's domestic wiretapping program AFTER THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS."

Why is it always deliberately ignored - or buried deep and vague in the reporting of the FISA issue - that some of the whistleblowers being deposed in the pending civil lawsuits described telecom cooperation with illegal NSA domestic surveillance MONTHS BEFORE 9/11 took place, early in the Bush regime?

Willybill and Olbermann make a good point: the current legislation under consideration involves civil liability only, not immunity from criminal prosecution under FISA's existing felony provisions "unless they change the wording before the final debate." No shit, we need to keep an eye on the fine print.

Also important, does the retroactive civil immunity itself extend only to the unlawful spying "after the 9/11 attacks", or does it cover alleged corporate collusion with NSA in the weeks and months preceding? Yowza, yowza, yowza - de debble's sho 'nuf in dem details.....

Why is this time reference turn of phrase invariably inserted into FISA news accounts in this particular fashion, if not to invite readers to casually and uncritically accept the factual premise of the Bush regime's propaganda theme - that Americans' phone lines were bugged (without warrants, on American soil by our own military intelligence agencies), only as a post-9/11, emergency wartime measure?

Yes, I'm pissed at Obama's backsliding on FISA too. Supposedly, he's set to vote for an amendment striking out the telecom immunity, but when that amendment fails, he'll then vote for the "compromise" bill, with the immunity grant still in it.

But isn't the bigger issue really what ends up in the final version's fine print?

Bill from Saginaw

This article once again uses the phrase "move to the center" in describing Obama's decision to support the FISA bill. Can we please acknowledge that the political climate has shifted in this country? If the "center" is giving telecom companies retroactive immunity for violating the law, then it is certainly evident that the "center" has shifted drastically to the right.

Peace.

- Chris
http://chriscommons.blogspot.com

I agree with Bill, I am alarmed and concerned and will withhold any further donations at this point. What I want to know is, why don't they just let FISA lapse altogether? Just don't give Bush a bill at all. We did fine without it.

Things would be so simple if there were only a political party that was consistently opposed to corporate crime. But where could one POSSIBLLY find such people??? Not in the pages of the New York Times it seems.

I'm done rationalizing and excusing Obama's rightward lurch. And the more I see, the more I believe he is not pretending to be centrist or right wing just to get elected. I think on several key issues, such as the faith-based program, the death penalty for child rapists, Iran's supposed efforts and desire to develop nukes so it can attack Israel, and his disdain for the 60's peace movement, he genuinely feels this way. Some progressive, huh?

Even if he were just pandering to win votes, the ends do not justify the means. You can't get to Heaven by selling your soul to the devil.

The one that really got me on Obama's list of "will do" is the faith-based one.

I remember in the '50s when my now ex (and deceased) brother-in-law was a Baptist preacher, he and his family lived in a small house next to the church, furnished by the congregation, and he drove a fairly old car. They had less than any of their siblings at the time.

Now we've got the million or billionaire preachers living in mansions, flying in private jets and being driven in fancy limos - tax free - and now every department in our government, funded by our taxes, has a "faith-based" office.

I've read too much history of Great Britian, I guess. My biggest fear for most of my adult life has been of the bigotted and fanatical "christians." We've seem plenty of those in the past decade.

Can't help but wonder how long it'll be before the twenty-first century Crusades begin.

medphoto July 2nd, 2008 12:51 pm ...As Olby said in his special comment....paraphrased...any criminal pardon of the telecoms is self incriminating.

Do not get me wrong, I have no intention of voting for Obama...I'm a Nader guy....but, if he fails to take Olby's challenge, this will just add to my reasons for not voting for Obama OR a major party.

Obama's patriotism tour: the last refuge of a Democratic scoundrel
By Bill Van Auken
2 July 2008

Barely one month after sealing his victory in the primaries and with four months to go before the general election, the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has embarked on a campaign swing that has the declared aim of proving his patriotism.

In practice, this exercise in self-abasement before the political right is aimed not at winning votes from the Republican Party, but rather at establishing Obama's credentials with the constituency that the junior senator from Illinois values most: America's corporate and financial elite.

Obama kicked off his patriotism tour—set to run through the July 4th holiday—with a speech entitled "The America We Love," delivered in Independence, Missouri. The site was chosen not merely for the town's name, but to establish Obama's connection with its most famous son—Harry Truman, the Democratic president who ordered atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the 24 hours leading up to the speech, the presidential race was dominated by a media-generated furor over a remark made by Obama supporter Gen. Wesley Clark, in an interview on a Sunday television talk show.

Clark, appearing on CBS television's "Face the Nation" responded to the moderator's remark that Obama, unlike his Republican rival John McCain, had no military experience, had not "ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down." Clark made the rather obvious point that getting shot down in a fighter plane was not "a qualification for president."

The howls of outrage from the McCain camp were answered by Obama's immediate repudiation of Clark. The contrast between the cowardice of the Democrats and the implacable attitude of the Republicans during the 2004 presidential election, when they waged a campaign to defame Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry by claiming that he had lied about his Vietnam War record, could not have been starker.

Behind this bowing before the Republican attacks on Clark's innocuous statement was the Democratic candidate's determination to prove himself prepared to wage war and unconditionally embrace American militarism. This theme was incorporated into Obama's speech, which referred to the Republican candidate by name, praising his military service and implicitly condemning once again Clark's remark.

Obama's speech, ostensibly a reflection upon patriotism and "American values" in the run-up to July 4th, was a thoroughly reactionary address, in which words were carefully chosen to identify with themes generally associated with the Republican right and, at key points, to deliver a kick in the teeth to sections of left-liberal Democrats who have deluded themselves and sought to generate illusions in others about the real political character of his campaign.

Obama began his speech with a ritualistic reference to the "men of Lexington and Concord ... our first patriots," without a word to acknowledge that the democratic ideals embodied in the American Revolution and the guarantees of democratic rights written into the US Constitution have been subjected to a wholesale repudiation in practice by the current Republican administration in Washington.

Obama made not a single concrete reference to the policies of the Bush administration. He criticized neither the war of aggression against Iraq, nor the sweeping destruction of Constitutional rights, from the scrapping of habeas corpus, to the practice of "extraordinary rendition," torture, and the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.

Of course, the Democrats and Obama himself are fully complicit in this process. "How do we keep ourselves safe and secure while preserving our liberties?" the Democratic candidate asked rhetorically at one point in the speech. Obama offered no answer, but just the week before he announced his support for a bill legalizing the Bush administration's domestic spying program, while offering blanket immunity to telecommunications companies that collaborated in the massive illegal warrantless wiretapping operation.

Supporting war and repudiating the 1960s

On the war, he cited the number of dead and wounded American troops and declared that their "sacrifice" called to mind "the commitments that bind us to our nation and to each other." That this sacrifice was imposed upon the American people on the basis of lies and in pursuit of predatory interests bound up with the conquest of Iraqi oil, not a word.

Obama continued by ascribing the difficulties in today's debates about patriotism to the "culture wars of the 1960s." In doing so, he deliberately identified himself with the ideological shibboleths of the political right. He denounced the "so-called counter-culture of the Sixties," identifying it with "burning flags" and "failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day."

These conceptions are taken directly from the canon of the right wing of the Republican Party. The conception that the "national shame" was the failure to "honor" Vietnam veterans—not the fact that they were sent to fight and die in a criminal colonial war to begin with—is a central theme within the protracted campaign by the US political establishment to expunge the "Vietnam syndrome" and condition the American people to accept new wars of aggression.

In a gratuitous swipe at MoveOn.org, the left-liberal pressure group that has largely supported Obama, the candidate went on to condemn the continued prevalence of "these old, threadbare arguments," exemplified according to him, when "a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal."

The reference was to a MoveOn.org ad published in September 2007 under the headline "General Petraeus or General Betray US?" It questioned the credibility of congressional testimony by the senior US commander in Iraq in defense of the Bush administration's military "surge."

The ad became the subject of a ferocious campaign by the Republican right, which pushed through a Congressional resolution—with substantial Democratic support—denouncing it as an affront the US military.

The reality, to which the ad's provocative headline referred, is that Petraeus was a political general who went out of his way to provide apologies for the Bush administration's policies, which were opposed by other senior commanders. This is widely acknowledged within the military and well known to Obama, who now chooses to align himself with the Republicans and cast the general as a victim of intolerance by the antiwar left.

Returning to the theme of the military and patriotism, Obama hailed US troops who have fought in Vietnam and Iraq for having sacrificed "on behalf of a larger cause." What that cause was, he doesn't say. However he went on to add: "The call to sacrifice for the country's greater good remains an imperative of citizenship. Sadly, in recent years, in the midst of war on two fronts, this call for service never came."

Again, there is not a hint that these wars on "two fronts" were wars of aggression, based on lies. Instead, there is the implicit suggestion that young people should be dragooned into fighting them as part of the "sacrifice" that is "an imperative of citizenship."

Significantly, the same day Obama delivered the speech in Independence, his senior national security advisor, Richard Danzig, a former navy secretary, told the media that there was little chance that a Democratic administration would cut the gargantuan Pentagon budget after taking control of the White House.

"It's hard to see how we could spend less on the military in the near term," Danzig told the Reuters news agency. The advisor stressed that Obama would heed the advice of US commanders in Iraq on the question of troop withdrawals, adding that he will seek a "more muscular US presence" in Afghanistan. Danzig also said that Obama would continue the US efforts to build a missile defense system.

"Faith-based" renewal

Obama followed up his speech in Missouri with a presentation in Zaneville, Ohio in which he vowed to substantially expand the program initiated by the Bush administration to provide federal funding for so-called "faith-based" social service groups. He thereby embraced an initiative that involves a frontal assault on the constitutional principle of separation of church and state, while endorsing the fraud that these church groups can deal with the massive social crisis gripping America.

"We know that faith and values can be a source of strength in our lives," said Obama. "That's what it's been for me. And that's what it is to many Americans. But it can also be something more. It can be the foundation of a new project of American renewal."

Under conditions in which the American economy stands on the brink of a full-scale depression, with millions faced with the loss of jobs and homes as well as the steady erosion of real incomes by soaring gas and food prices, the conception of a religion-based "project of American renewal" is as ludicrous as it is reactionary.

Obama's lurch to the right, after winning a primary campaign by posturing as an advocate of change and an opponent of the Iraq war, has drawn widespread comment.

"I've been struck by the speed and decisiveness of his move to the center," Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, an arm of the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council, said approvingly.

In a June 28 article, the Los Angeles Times noted Obama's "emphasizing centrist—even conservative—positions on hot button issues," pointing to his support for the domestic spying legislation, his assertion that states should be allowed to execute child rapists and his backing for the US Supreme Court's striking down of the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. "The changes carry some risk that Obama will diminish the image he has sought to build as a new type of leader who will change how Washington conducts business," the paper warned.

The positions being taken by Obama are not some clever vote-winning ploy. What you see is what you get. He is a thoroughly corrupt and reactionary politician, who has clawed his way up through the political cesspool known as the Chicago Democratic Party machine. He is prepared to do anything to succeed and whatever is required to uphold the interests of the ruling elite that both political parties serve.

For a layer of so-called lefts oriented to the Democratic Party, none of this will make a difference. They will only work harder at trying to convince people that Obama is merely being pressured from the right and can be pushed back by pressure from the left.

This standpoint is most clearly expressed by the Nation magazine, which recently commented on the controversy provoked by Obama's selection of a right-wing economic advisor.

"Now Obama has stumbled into embarrassing questions about his commitment to that message of change," it said in a June 19 editorial. "It wouldn't be the first time a Democratic presidential candidate talked about sweeping change, won over the party faithful and ordinary voters, and then abandoned them to powerful interests. But we believe Obama is better than that..."

The Nation peddles the crassest illusions in Obama and through him, in the Democratic Party and the profit system it defends. But this task becomes more and more difficult as Obama moves sharply to the right, even while the deepening economic and social crisis are creating the conditions for a broad shift to the left among American youth, students and working people.

The political evolution of the Obama campaign is the clearest confirmation that the struggle against war and social reaction can be advanced only through a definitive break with the Democrats and the building of a new independent party of the working class, based on a socialist program.

Obama's patriotism tour: the last refuge of a Democratic scoundrel
By Bill Van Auken
2 July 2008

Barely one month after sealing his victory in the primaries and with four months to go before the general election, the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has embarked on a campaign swing that has the declared aim of proving his patriotism.

In practice, this exercise in self-abasement before the political right is aimed not at winning votes from the Republican Party, but rather at establishing Obama's credentials with the constituency that the junior senator from Illinois values most: America's corporate and financial elite.

Obama kicked off his patriotism tour—set to run through the July 4th holiday—with a speech entitled "The America We Love," delivered in Independence, Missouri. The site was chosen not merely for the town's name, but to establish Obama's connection with its most famous son—Harry Truman, the Democratic president who ordered atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the 24 hours leading up to the speech, the presidential race was dominated by a media-generated furor over a remark made by Obama supporter Gen. Wesley Clark, in an interview on a Sunday television talk show.

Clark, appearing on CBS television's "Face the Nation" responded to the moderator's remark that Obama, unlike his Republican rival John McCain, had no military experience, had not "ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down." Clark made the rather obvious point that getting shot down in a fighter plane was not "a qualification for president."

The howls of outrage from the McCain camp were answered by Obama's immediate repudiation of Clark. The contrast between the cowardice of the Democrats and the implacable attitude of the Republicans during the 2004 presidential election, when they waged a campaign to defame Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry by claiming that he had lied about his Vietnam War record, could not have been starker.

Behind this bowing before the Republican attacks on Clark's innocuous statement was the Democratic candidate's determination to prove himself prepared to wage war and unconditionally embrace American militarism. This theme was incorporated into Obama's speech, which referred to the Republican candidate by name, praising his military service and implicitly condemning once again Clark's remark.

Obama's speech, ostensibly a reflection upon patriotism and "American values" in the run-up to July 4th, was a thoroughly reactionary address, in which words were carefully chosen to identify with themes generally associated with the Republican right and, at key points, to deliver a kick in the teeth to sections of left-liberal Democrats who have deluded themselves and sought to generate illusions in others about the real political character of his campaign.

Obama began his speech with a ritualistic reference to the "men of Lexington and Concord ... our first patriots," without a word to acknowledge that the democratic ideals embodied in the American Revolution and the guarantees of democratic rights written into the US Constitution have been subjected to a wholesale repudiation in practice by the current Republican administration in Washington.

Obama made not a single concrete reference to the policies of the Bush administration. He criticized neither the war of aggression against Iraq, nor the sweeping destruction of Constitutional rights, from the scrapping of habeas corpus, to the practice of "extraordinary rendition," torture, and the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.

Of course, the Democrats and Obama himself are fully complicit in this process. "How do we keep ourselves safe and secure while preserving our liberties?" the Democratic candidate asked rhetorically at one point in the speech. Obama offered no answer, but just the week before he announced his support for a bill legalizing the Bush administration's domestic spying program, while offering blanket immunity to telecommunications companies that collaborated in the massive illegal warrantless wiretapping operation.

Supporting war and repudiating the 1960s

On the war, he cited the number of dead and wounded American troops and declared that their "sacrifice" called to mind "the commitments that bind us to our nation and to each other." That this sacrifice was imposed upon the American people on the basis of lies and in pursuit of predatory interests bound up with the conquest of Iraqi oil, not a word.

Obama continued by ascribing the difficulties in today's debates about patriotism to the "culture wars of the 1960s." In doing so, he deliberately identified himself with the ideological shibboleths of the political right. He denounced the "so-called counter-culture of the Sixties," identifying it with "burning flags" and "failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day."

These conceptions are taken directly from the canon of the right wing of the Republican Party. The conception that the "national shame" was the failure to "honor" Vietnam veterans—not the fact that they were sent to fight and die in a criminal colonial war to begin with—is a central theme within the protracted campaign by the US political establishment to expunge the "Vietnam syndrome" and condition the American people to accept new wars of aggression.

In a gratuitous swipe at MoveOn.org, the left-liberal pressure group that has largely supported Obama, the candidate went on to condemn the continued prevalence of "these old, threadbare arguments," exemplified according to him, when "a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal."

The reference was to a MoveOn.org ad published in September 2007 under the headline "General Petraeus or General Betray US?" It questioned the credibility of congressional testimony by the senior US commander in Iraq in defense of the Bush administration's military "surge."

The ad became the subject of a ferocious campaign by the Republican right, which pushed through a Congressional resolution—with substantial Democratic support—denouncing it as an affront the US military.

The reality, to which the ad's provocative headline referred, is that Petraeus was a political general who went out of his way to provide apologies for the Bush administration's policies, which were opposed by other senior commanders. This is widely acknowledged within the military and well known to Obama, who now chooses to align himself with the Republicans and cast the general as a victim of intolerance by the antiwar left.

Returning to the theme of the military and patriotism, Obama hailed US troops who have fought in Vietnam and Iraq for having sacrificed "on behalf of a larger cause." What that cause was, he doesn't say. However he went on to add: "The call to sacrifice for the country's greater good remains an imperative of citizenship. Sadly, in recent years, in the midst of war on two fronts, this call for service never came."

Again, there is not a hint that these wars on "two fronts" were wars of aggression, based on lies. Instead, there is the implicit suggestion that young people should be dragooned into fighting them as part of the "sacrifice" that is "an imperative of citizenship."

Significantly, the same day Obama delivered the speech in Independence, his senior national security advisor, Richard Danzig, a former navy secretary, told the media that there was little chance that a Democratic administration would cut the gargantuan Pentagon budget after taking control of the White House.

"It's hard to see how we could spend less on the military in the near term," Danzig told the Reuters news agency. The advisor stressed that Obama would heed the advice of US commanders in Iraq on the question of troop withdrawals, adding that he will seek a "more muscular US presence" in Afghanistan. Danzig also said that Obama would continue the US efforts to build a missile defense system.

"Faith-based" renewal

Obama followed up his speech in Missouri with a presentation in Zaneville, Ohio in which he vowed to substantially expand the program initiated by the Bush administration to provide federal funding for so-called "faith-based" social service groups. He thereby embraced an initiative that involves a frontal assault on the constitutional principle of separation of church and state, while endorsing the fraud that these church groups can deal with the massive social crisis gripping America.

"We know that faith and values can be a source of strength in our lives," said Obama. "That's what it's been for me. And that's what it is to many Americans. But it can also be something more. It can be the foundation of a new project of American renewal."

Under conditions in which the American economy stands on the brink of a full-scale depression, with millions faced with the loss of jobs and homes as well as the steady erosion of real incomes by soaring gas and food prices, the conception of a religion-based "project of American renewal" is as ludicrous as it is reactionary.

Obama's lurch to the right, after winning a primary campaign by posturing as an advocate of change and an opponent of the Iraq war, has drawn widespread comment.

"I've been struck by the speed and decisiveness of his move to the center," Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, an arm of the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council, said approvingly.

In a June 28 article, the Los Angeles Times noted Obama's "emphasizing centrist—even conservative—positions on hot button issues," pointing to his support for the domestic spying legislation, his assertion that states should be allowed to execute child rapists and his backing for the US Supreme Court's striking down of the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. "The changes carry some risk that Obama will diminish the image he has sought to build as a new type of leader who will change how Washington conducts business," the paper warned.

The positions being taken by Obama are not some clever vote-winning ploy. What you see is what you get. He is a thoroughly corrupt and reactionary politician, who has clawed his way up through the political cesspool known as the Chicago Democratic Party machine. He is prepared to do anything to succeed and whatever is required to uphold the interests of the ruling elite that both political parties serve.

For a layer of so-called lefts oriented to the Democratic Party, none of this will make a difference. They will only work harder at trying to convince people that Obama is merely being pressured from the right and can be pushed back by pressure from the left.

This standpoint is most clearly expressed by the Nation magazine, which recently commented on the controversy provoked by Obama's selection of a right-wing economic advisor.

"Now Obama has stumbled into embarrassing questions about his commitment to that message of change," it said in a June 19 editorial. "It wouldn't be the first time a Democratic presidential candidate talked about sweeping change, won over the party faithful and ordinary voters, and then abandoned them to powerful interests. But we believe Obama is better than that..."

The Nation peddles the crassest illusions in Obama and through him, in the Democratic Party and the profit system it defends. But this task becomes more and more difficult as Obama moves sharply to the right, even while the deepening economic and social crisis are creating the conditions for a broad shift to the left among American youth, students and working people.

The political evolution of the Obama campaign is the clearest confirmation that the struggle against war and social reaction can be advanced only through a definitive break with the Democrats and the building of a new independent party of the working class, based on a socialist program.

Obama's so-called "supporters" are completely IDIOTIC. They should have seen this coming a looooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggg time ago when it was obvious. It's too late to organize a protest once the damage has been done !

One ought not to be allowed to double-post spam with impunity.

"I will continue to support him," Mr. Moulitsas said in an interview. "But I was going to write him a check, and I decided I would rather put that money with Democrats who will uphold the Constitution."

Sounds like a good way to save your money this election year. Donors trying to find Democrats who will uphold the Constitution must wander around like Diogenes with flickering lamps -- and just as hopelessly.

Nixon would be to the 'left' of today's 'center'

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

It's like bowling a strike. You put a spin on the ball; it starts out going in the "wrong" direction, then comes around to the sweet spot. Play the primary campaign to the left wing, then play the general campaign to the corporations Now that the general campaign is set, the choice is between right-wing and ultra-right-wing. Liberals are left with the old choice: Vote for what you want and lose, or for the least worst and still lose. Works every time.

Compromise?!! What is the compromise, except the principles of those who voted for the republican immunity bill from the senate.

I'm from Keating 5-McCain's home state, and will be voting for Nader, in this, the last election in which I'll be participating. For reasons of disgust.

RichM -

Nice, concise analysis. Obama never should have gone wobbly on opposing FISA immunity, of course. But now that he has, neither of his options are pleasant, as you point out.

I disagree with your assessment of how Obama's advisors should balance this Hobson's choice damage control equation, however. He has far, far more to lose by alienating his energized, growing grassroots base that wants to end beltway politics as we know it, than he has to fear name-calling ("flip-flop!" "soft on terrorism") from the McCain camp. Indeed, if Obama's campaign starts shaping their tactics out of fear of the big smear, then he's already lost the war.

I believe much of the hullabaloo (Anne Faith, Bill Van Auken) over Obama's supposed "shift to the right-center" is overblown. He's always been a centrist. Much of what's taking place right now is that since the primary season is over, Barack's making some modest overtures towards elements of the traditional GOP base (evangelicals, gun owners, law and order jingoists, disgruntled Vietnam era war supporters, etc.)

It's not a sudden "lurch to the right" just because Karl Rove, George Stephanopoulos and Arianna Huffington all simultaneously declare that it's a lurch. I call it a small enlargement of the big tent. Unless Obama starts inviting Rush or Scaife or their buddies to step inside, I wouldn't get my skivvies in a twist.

To me, the moment of truth will be the Colorado convention.

If there's a replay of the sanitized 2004 Kerry convention, with progressive voices like Dennis Kuchnich consciously marginalized or silenced, then we'll know real fast that the dumb DC beltway strategists are going to blow it again, setting the stage for the 2008 election to end up close enough for the GOP to steal. I genuinely believe Barack Obama is smart enough not to repeat the mistake of focusing on those ephermeral swing voters.

If Obama instead turns the convention podium over to the anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-torture, anti-corporate greed grassroots activists within the Democratic base, then Barack can then position himself as a reasonable centrist leader (much like FDR did), capable of actualizing and moderating the popular clamor for change.

That's a smart strategy for campaigning. And it's not a bad way to govern either.

Bill from Saginaw

It's all downhill from here.

Bill, I agree that the perception that Obama suddenly swerved to the right is illusory, and that he is essentially a centrist with an ambiguous style that is easily mischaracterized. But I'm not nearly so forgiving as you are regarding the true colors he's been flashing lately. I don't think his overtures are as modest as you suggest, and the evasive action and doubletalk from his campaign on the FISA issue is just as phony, bogus, and offensive as the equivalent crap from the maladministration and "lesser" candidates.

And he seems genuinely cool to Sixties-ish strident leftism; I'd be thrilled if he opened up the convention as you suggest, but I don't expect it. Obama really seems set on building his Third Way on traditional pieties and orthodox values.

Since CD's mediocre comments section doesn't include permalinks, I'll re-post most of a comment from another article that tangentially expands on this point:

[As an uregenerate alumnus of the Aquarian Age] ...I draw a sharply negative inference when anybody repudiates or disses the Sixties from any point on the political spectrum. I don't intend to defend my prejudice here, but I will say that no, I don't look back on the Sixties culture as flawless or utopian.

All this to say that I flinched more than once when Obama saw fit to criticize Sixties politics and culture in favor of lauding Decent Amerikans who believe in respecting government, religion, and even guns, for that matter. Ironically, in my own way I doubted if Obama was "one of us".

I've mentioned often in CD posts that I've been having a friendly running dialogue with someone who's generally at least skeptical of the hopelessly warped and corroded Amerikan political process, but who became impressed with Obama.

When Obama picked a bunch of Clintonista retreads to form his Foreign Policy Work Group, my friend responded to my squeals of dismay by suggesting that I not place too much important on this routine party-building and campaign-building. Who did you expect he'd pick? Noam Chomsky? If he did, the media coverage and wingnut blowback (same thing) would drive his campaign right off the cliff!

I mulled that over for a while, but after the FISA debacle and other developments that don't need to be reiterated here, I e-mailed back with a bit of an Aha! point. True conoisseurs of Obama seem to consider him a political Miles Davis– a breakthrough genius whose consciousness is so superbly attuned to the essence of his craft that ordinary Philistines can't begin to pick up what he puts down. We're always told that we don't "get it", insofar as Obama is playing a transcendental game that breaks traditional labels or dualities like left/right, progressive/reactionary.

And it hit me: if Obama is truly so fucking transcendental, how come he's consistently, even EXCLUSIVELY, turning his back on the progressive section of the audience and positively ROMANCING the reactionary elements? Yeah, I "get" that he's an expert in political behaviorism, so to speak, and that obviously the first non-white presidential candidate is going to be challenged and distrusted most strongly by Silent Majority types.

To me, Obama's like the father in the Prodigal Son story– a parable that may have a redeeming spiritual message, but which aggravates anyone who reads it simply as a story. Obama is pandering to the returned prodigal son, and falling all over him with feasts and gifts while the loyal, respectable sons are treated like crap. In short, taking the non-prodigal sons for granted.

As I wrote to my interlocutor, I'd have felt a whole hell of a lot better if Obama HAD stuck a Chomsky in there somewhere, or if he sincerely "reached out" to progressives instead of following the standard Democratic candidate script of Sistah Souljahing what remains of the "left". Frankly, I don't think he gives a damn if disgruntled "purist" progressives rattle our cages; like his predecessors, he probably calculates both that we're expendable, and that in any case he's got the lesser-evil vote anyway.

One can't be sure– especially if one doesn't feel compelled to Read His Books! for the revealed truth– if he's "secretly" more progressive, or if he is playing to the right-hand galleries because he really favors the orthodox, complacent Silent Majority constituency. I hoped otherwise, but I suspect that as a self-conscious Good Shepherd, he prefers the company of sycophantic sheep.

In a five hour fit of anger and frustration, I dug up the names and contact information on the "Democratic" House & Senator traitors who voted to approve the latest version of the "Compromise FISA bill" -- which destroys our Fourth Amendment.  I put the two lists up on the Net as websites and will now go about "promoting" them.  Ideally, with your help, we could bring these sites to the attention of enough people to develop a viral network that could then gain critical mass among voters to remove these traitors.

Here are the sites: 

For House "Representatives": http://www.cloudbyte.com/traitors.html
For "Senators": http://www.cloudbyte.com/senatetraitors.html

Post from Sheldon Laskin's Blog:
FISA -- Do the Right Thing
By Sheldon Laskin - Jun 29th, 2008 at 12:34 pm EDT
Also listed in: Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right

Dear Senator Obama,

Russ Feingold has bought you time.

Time for you to decide to act consistently with your previously declared principles, and to both vote against the proposed FISA bill and to publicly denounce it.

Last August, you publicly and correctly described the FISA bill as a "false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand" and promised "no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens.... That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. The FISA court works. The separation of powers works. Our Constitution works." Now, you appear to be prepared to vote in favor of this shameful and unnecessary assault on American civil liberties. What has changed?

Certainly, the threat posed by this bill to the right of all Americans to be secure against unwarranted government snooping in their private conversations has not changed. As Senator Feingold explained, the current bill grants the Bush Administration - an Administration that has demonstrated time and time again that it is not to be trusted where civil liberties are concerned - "expansive new authorities to spy on Americans' international communications." The Senate is poised to grant the Administration these dangerous new powers, notwithstanding that 70 Senators still know nothing about the previous illegal warrantless wiretapping program because the Administraion refuses to share that information. What you do know is that the Adminstration's supporters do not view this bill as a compromise. As Senator Bond has said, it looks like Bush will get a better deal than even he hoped to get. To quote Senator Feingold, the bill is a product of a "backroom deal" that is being shamelessly mischaracterized as a compromise when it is, again in Senator Feingold's words, a "capitulation" to the Bush Administration.

As far as I can see, the only thing that has changed is that you have locked up the Democratic nomination for President and feel the need to tack rightward. If this is true, it is a betrayal of your ardent supporters, such as myself, who really believe in your potential to bring much needed change to our sorely ailing institutions of government.

Let me be clear - I do not believe that anyone, including a candidate for President, must always act consistently with his prior statements and actions. Indeed, one of the greatest weaknesses of the current occupant of the White House is his total inability or unwillingness to acknowledge error and to change course. A foolish consistency is truly the hobgoblin of small minds. Circumstances change, and we all need to be flexible - and courageous - enough to change our previously declared positions as new and better information becomes available. It is for that reason that I fully support your change of position regarding accepting public financing for your campaign -- the public financing system is truly broken and you would have been at a tremendous disadvantage had you limited your ability to receive private donations from your many small donor supporters.

But you should not change a correctly reasoned and principled decision because it appears to be politically expedient to do so. First, as the howls of derision calling you a FISA"flip flopper" currently being hurtled at you by your political opponents demonstrate, a politically crass change of position will not work. Such political expediency will not gain you votes, and may indeed lose you votes as some of your previously energized supporters either stop urging their friends to support you, or abandon you entirely.

But even if you manage to win the election as a result of your politically motivated tacking on a matter of principle, the more you allow yourself to do this the more you will become, not an agent of change, but a prisoner of the seemingly expedient choices you have made. Even if you are serious about improving the FISA bill once you take office, you will find that a vote in favor of it now will make it that much more difficult to undo next year. You are handing the Far Right a very strong argument - if the FISA bill was good enough for you to vote in favor of under a Bush Administration, what will have changed in a few short months to make it unacceptable in an Obama Adminstration?

I believe you are better than this. As I said, Senator Feingold has bought you time to reconnect with the change agent I believe you to be. And, since you have said you would work to strip out the retroactive immunity provision, a vote to do so and to kill the bill if it is not removed will not subject you to a charge of "flipflopping." It is only if you support the bill that you will open yourself up to such a charge.

Whatever you choose to do at this time, I will vote for you in November because I believe the alternative to be so much worse. But my enthusiasm and advocacy for your candidacy, and your Adminstration, will be gone. I know I am far from alone in my feelings. At the end of the day, is it worth it? Is it worth it to abandon your principles and to support this pernicious bill because of your - incorrect - belief that your election requires you to do so? Your support comes largely from younger and more independent voters; precisely the constituency that will lose respect for you if you do not vote to reject the bill and if you do not publicly condemn it.

I hope you find it within you to do both the morally correct and politically expedient thing - oppose the FISA bill.

Thank you.

By doing this stupid shit, Obama is wiping out his 12 point lead nationally over McCain and making it a very close election. I guess we need another 50.5% to 49.5% election when it shouldn't even be close. The problem is, he will probably blow it. I keep asking, "Who on earth is giving him this incredibly stupid advice"? He should fire all of his "advisors" and start over.

BARRY,
PLEASE REVERSE YOUR DECISION ON GRANTING IMMUNITY TO THE TELECOMS (AND THEREBY TO BUSH HIMSELF).
IHAD HOPED THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE AT LEAST SOME OF THE INTEGRITY OF RALPH NADER, BUT I GUESS THAT WAS TOO MUCH TO HOPE FOR.
YOU HAVE DESTROYED MY HOPE THAT AT LAST WE HAD A CANDIDATE WITH THE COURAGE AND MORAL CONVICTIONS TO CONFRONT THE FASCIST NEOCONS HEAD ON. OBVIOUSLY I WAS WRONG - YOU'RE A POLITICAL HACK ONLY A LITTLE BETTER THAN JOHN McCAIN.
PLEASE REACH DEEP INSIDE YOURSELF AND LET YOUR BETTER LIGHTS SHINE. OPPOSE TELECOM IMMUNITY AND GET ABOUT THE SERIOUS BUSINESS OF RECLAIMING OUR DEMOCRACY FROM THE FASCISTS.

Somebody enlighten me here, please. Obama did not want the FISA bill to expire because...?

Added note: If only the MSM political commentators would explain the core of the issues, instead of going on and on claiming to have seer talents, then maybe the public would not get most of their real info from the internet.

lwhunt330,

Then, of course, incredibly stupid advice may not be at the bottom of all this. An alternative explanation is that Obama, being the presumptive Democratic nominee, has now been made aware of certain facts concerning the ummm..... personal security, shall we say, of the President of the United States, and the steps he needs to take to ensure that personal security....

Voters fall victim again to political indignation. For fecks sake - vote Green, or OTHER party.

wilmoor says: "Can't help but wonder how long it'll be before the twenty-first century Crusades begin."

Where you been, wilmoor? Crusades means Christian country or countries marches into a Moslem country or countries in the name of bringing civilization and tries to establish permanent domination. This time it is not so clearly a Christian thing, because our true religion is money.

The ironic thing is the FISA is something that a strong stand on from the left would get a significant amount of support from the right, if couched in the language of anti-big government.

Thats not rocket-science its just obvious THOUGH UNPROFITABLE THINKING.

Of course it would entail a democrat or two actually SPEAKING UP AS IF THEY WANTED PEOPLE TO TAKE NOTE, which is something that they haven't done since 1968.

I give up. Obama has made it impossible for me to vote for him. He has shown himself to be too naive and lacking in courage to be a viable alternative to Bush and his clones. His actions have demonstrated to me that he does not have true leadership qualities, and suggest his interest is primarily in power and not for the good of the people. What a shame.

RichM I agree that Obama was a Bush enableing "centerist" although we really need to challenge that term. I tend to agree with Van Auken thoughk, in that I am already convinced that Obama will be a SAY NOTHING Kerry candidate. At this point I dont really think its about Kerry Obama, or any individual candidate.

How can one when Obam NEVER SAID ANYTHING CONCRETE IN THE PRIMARIES, and only spread around vague language that people could read into what they wanted to--provided they were young and or politically inexperienced enough? When it comes to these moves to the right however I think you underplay the imporatance of FISA flip. That was a very very tell-tale and important move. With this flip the very last flicker of separtaion of powers and public accountablility are gone.

I will praise Obama when he says something praiseworthy, but so far I have seen nothing but a big money DLC PR strategy designed to establish him as the Oposite of Hillary when he NEVER really was. Remeber the COngressional Candidates funded by Rahm Emmanual? How they were all pro-war strategic fence sitters running against more actively anti-war democrats. REMEMBER HOW BADLY RAHMS SELECT DID AS COMPARED WITH THE DEMS AS A WHOLE .

We might think that Rahm lost but he really won. He can go to the corporate scum and say, see my fence strategy still works give me more cash. And the slow among us will give him cash too!!!! WE LOST, RAHM WON!

I dont know how long we can go on having hope in false-opposite. Again, I am not party person-- If Obama says somethin Ill praise him for it, but ENOUGH OF THE WASTED HAMSTER-WHEEL FALSE OPPOSITE strategy. Want change? Bashing the Corporate Democrats is a win win situation.

Does any Obama supporter really think that he will bring about change, now? McCain is already seen as just an extension of Bush. There really is no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats: they are both largely funded by the same very wealthy haves and have-mores and when it comes right down to it, the Democrats, just the same as the Republicans, will not bite the hands that feed them. The only way for TRUE reform to happen is either completely gut the system and replace it (and hope the result isn't worse.) or to vote in third parties. Can a democracy be legitimate when only two "opposing" views are allowed into the big discussions?

Hope is a Christian thing. I'm so glad I use reason to make my decisions. Christians must go from one disappointment to another their whole lives. But, then again, if you're going to spend your entire life living for something better in the next (you hope), then you deserve absolutely no happiness. Hope is and always has been a complete cop out. Only cowards needs hope.

The theological virtue defined as the desire and search for a future good, difficult but not impossible to attain with God's help.

Thanks, William Street, for pointing out that the FISA violations started before 9-11. (They were not a response to 9-11). Bush began his illegal eavesdropping from the very start of his administration. That news has been reported before. I had heard it, but the corporate media has ignored and misstated it continuously. Another who was aware of this before 9-11 was Nancy Pelosi, herself. How do you say, "Complicity?"

See the facts from willybilly

Depending upon how you interpret "legal protection"….this bills allows immunity from civil judgement, NOT criminality….unless they change the wording before the final debate. Olbermann made this crystal clear in his most recent "special comment"

Check out www.truthout.org for the transcript.

d.o.n.k.e.y.m.a.n