Barack Obama’s vote in favor of the FISA overhaul bill was a disappointment even to those of us who did not see the Illinois senator as the great progressive hope. Earlier this year Obama had stated his opposition to any legislation that included immunity for the telecommunication companies that had helped the Bush administration break the law and he promised a filibuster of any such provisions. But in the end his vote added to the ability of the president and his associates to once again evade responsibility for their actions.
Obama is a centrist Democrat who took some very principled stands – especially his strong opposition to the Iraq war – that brought in many voters disgusted with the illegal conduct of the Bush administration and searching for change. Now, with the Democratic Party nomination squared way, Obama has begun to stress his less-than-progressive positions. In addition to his vote on the FISA expansion, his attempts at ingratiating himself with the coveted middle-of-the-road voter have included favoring additional taxpayer funding of faith-based initiatives, the death sentence for child rapists, and a “refinement” of his position on exactly how and when to bring our soldiers home from Iraq. Apparently the pushback on his Iraq pronouncement was so fierce that he had to reiterate his commitment to ending the war. This is just what the candidate needs, a reminder from his most committed supporters. His flip on the FISA bill created an uproar on his web site and a 19,000-strong user group that urged him, to no avail, to oppose the gutting of FISA.
While the senator eagerly courts his would-be centrist supporters, he would do well to remember the millions of people he inspired with slogans such as “change we can believe in”. Those voters, including many young people who have never voted before, may become disillusioned and stay away from the polls as the change they believed in becomes the change that is expedient.
Is this suprising? Both of the canidates sound the same cause they are the same. Vote the constitutional party
Astute comments, ames58. Obama does risk losing the “millions of people he inspired.” But his campaign asserts, often correctly, that he has not changed his positions. Problem is that many of those millions hadn’t paid close attention, hadn’t read his website . . . When I quoted some of his stuff on unquestioned support for Israel and building up the military, one of my born again Democrat friends accused me of being selective. Well, yes, I selected passages that illustrated some of his less than “progressive” positions. No one should be surprised by his recent positions on, say, escalating the war in Afghanistan. It has all been there for the reading, if one so chose.