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MoveOn Pressing Obama To Filibuster
In a new demonstration of their vast political naivete, MoveOn.org is now offering Senator Obama the benefit of their advice on how to win a battle and lose the war:
http://pol.moveon.org/immunity/080621obama.html
Just when I thought they couldn't top the "Betrayus" ad, they seem on the verge of doing just that. Senator Obama and the Democratic Party are so lucky to have these folks around to keep the Party on track. Too bad they weren't around when George McGovern was running for president. They might have convinced him to stick to his guns. Oh, wait... He did stick to his guns. As I remember, he received 17 electoral votes to Richard Nixon's 520.
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Comments (35)
Moveon makes a lot of mistakes. But why are you so sure that fighting FISA would hurt Obama's election chances? It's not like telecom immunity is popular with voters.
June 23, 2008 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed. It is not. As with the war, Congress again cowers to the president's unpopular policies and abuses. Democrats really are afraid of the Republicans.
June 23, 2008 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't believe that's the problem. I believe the problem is that it's very difficult to get a consensus among Democrats. We're not like the Republicans. We aren't prone to lock-step party unity like they are. For the Republicans, unity means circling the wagons and forming gangs--even if you know in you're heart, you're wrong. For Democrats, unity is inclusiveness. We aren't easily herded. It's simultaneously a great strength and a great weakness.
June 23, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Telecom immunity is not popular with many voters--the ones who are paying attention. But it's a non-issue for most voters. They have no clue what it means, and if the press and the Republicans tell them that this bill is an essential tool in the War On Terror©® (which they most certainly will do), then a large portion of America's perennially half-asleep voters will believe it. It's just another opportunity for Obama to be painted as "inexperienced" and "too far to the left" by the conservative media. He needs to make a strong stand on this, but he can't stand alone. He can't be the champion of killing telecom immunity, and he can't allow MoveOn to bully him into doing something stupid.
MoveOn closed down their 527 operation. Now if they could just learn to close their big mouths...
June 23, 2008 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
But it was OK for Obama to win the support of the crazy lefties by promising to filibuster against telecom immunity in the first place, right?
if the press and the Republicans tell them that this bill is an essential tool in the War On Terror©® (which they most certainly will do), then a large portion of America's perennially half-asleep voters will believe it.
So Obama shouldn't stand up to the Republicans on anything regarding "national security" until he's elected?
June 23, 2008 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
You don't know what Obama will do. Neither do I. Why not wait and see?
Obama should stand up to the Republicans on national security every single time he can show that his position is stronger. But that's a tough game to play. If he looks too hawkish on national security, he loses the left. If he appears weak, he loses moderates. What I believe is that he must approach the telecom immunity issue very carefully. Many Americans are scared to death, and they're willing to give up their civil rights in exchange for the phony illusion of safety the Republicans claim they're offering. It doesn't matter that those Americans are naive and ill-informed. This is about fear, and the Republicans are very good at playing that card. If they can paint Obama as weak on domestic defense, they can really hurt him.
June 23, 2008 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, it wasn't. But it's also not OK for the crazy lefties to hold him to a past commitment that he may or may not regret making. Not when there's an election at stake. Not when a loss by Obama means putting John Fucking McCain in the White House and possibly losing to the Republicans for decades to come.
There's the big picture and then there's the short-term view. This is no time to be focusing on the short-term view.
June 23, 2008 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
And if you think I'm crazy, wait 'til you read what that whacky Madison kid wrote into the 4th Amendment. Never was very stable. Completely out of his gourd.
June 23, 2008 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't coin the term. I only responded to it.
June 23, 2008 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think stripping Americans of their 4th amendment rights is so short-term. I'm sorry, but I completely disagree with your view of this. I think he should filibuster. This bill is bullcrap. I don't think it will hurt him one iota in the election. Even my repub family members are sick of being lied to. And this issue is big enough to deserve his attention. If he backs down on this, what does he really stand for? Change? Really? Changing the constitution, I guess. I do understand your concern, but I honestly think doing the right thing is not going to hurt him in this instance. I also think he ought to read the constitution, out loud, over and over, while he filibusters. Maybe it will sink in up there on the Hill. :)
June 23, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait, is Obama triangulating?
You know, sometimes hard decisions had to be made and it is often easy to talk about a speech you made instead of casting those hard votes. Well, here is a very, very hard vote and Senator Obama came down on the wrong side.
June 23, 2008 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have you ever had a job that you just hated, and you got up every morning and you really, really wanted to tell your boss to go fuck himself, but you knew if you did, you'd get fired and lose your house and your kids would go hungry and your wife would hate your guts forever?
Life is full of simple decisions when they're not yours to make.
June 23, 2008 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Except Obama doesn't have the job yet. He & McCain are still applying for the job. And I hope Obama isn't already sick of applying for it.
No one forced him to say he would support a filibuster, it's a decision he made for himself. And if he's changed his mind and would no longer support a filibuster, he should explain why.
June 23, 2008 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, he shouldn't explain why. He shouldn't explain anything. Because the Republicans will murder him with his explanation. They will wrap it around hie neck and choke the life out of him with it.
Obama isn't talking to you any longer. He's talking to steelworkers in Ohio. He's talking to banjo playing hillbillies in West Virginia. He's talking to UAW members in Detroit. Cut him some fucking slack, OK? He's not YOUR candidate any longer. And if he was, he'd lose.
June 23, 2008 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear what you are saying 'dorf, but I really don't want the next couple of months degenerating into episode after episode of "What policy positions can I sacrifice for political expediency today." That would be a sad development, and run against what we liked about Obama in the first place.
June 23, 2008 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Les, for once I agree. It is difficult to see the difference if Obama does cast the wrong vote. After eviscerating Clinton for her triangulation, I am in no position to applaud Obama's if he does likewise.
June 23, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton would vote EXACTLY the same way.
June 23, 2008 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your link doesn't work but if MoveOn is saying that Obama should oppose this bill, which deletes some of the protections Americans are supposed to enjoy under the fourth Amendment, I agree with MoveOn.
If Obama is the man we think he is, he'll survive upholding the constitution, and thrive as a result of a principled stand.
He could have caved on the gas tax holiday but, instead, he explained what was wrong with it and the electorate got behind him.
This is a hell of a lot more important than the gas tax.
June 23, 2008 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quote: "You don't know what Obama will do. Neither do I. Why not wait and see?"
I'm willing to wait and see what Obama will do. But I'm not willing to wait and see if it's "okay" to start carving away at the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, as long as it's only a little bit and can be reversed later. Because it's not okay.
It also bothers me that Obama said that, if elected President, he'll monitor the program closely. That's not good enough, and I'm sure he knows that.
June 23, 2008 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
We agree to a myriad of federal, state and local Constitutional violations on a daily basis. We have allowed our government to operate as a fully independent body, no longer answerable to the people.
To pretend that FISA is somehow the straw that broke the camel's back given the massive amounts of trespasses that we have allowed to take place over the last 40 years doesn't seem to be in keeping with the historical record.
Makes me wonder where you went to school, because most of this stuff is pretty easy to find.
June 23, 2008 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Impeach Obama
When Obama wasn't even a Senator he would have you believe he would have voted against the authorization for force in Iraq.
Now that he is a Senator he sure has lost his maverick streak and has learned to go-along-to-get-along.
Just another tough talking politician when he didn't have any clue what he was talking about but now that he's in the club he wouldn't want to rock the boat.
June 23, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, that's the ticket! Let's get McCain elected. He's the same as Obama. Just like Bush was the same as Gore.
June 23, 2008 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
More uninformed troll drivel.
June 23, 2008 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't hold yer breath.
Obama's cowardice is alive and well.
June 23, 2008 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Care to elaborate with specific facts? And your sources please.
June 23, 2008 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quote: "To pretend that FISA is somehow the straw that broke the camel's back given the massive amounts of trespasses that we have allowed to take place over the last 40 years doesn't seem to be in keeping with the historical record."
I see. Your position is that only the "straw that broke the camel's back" warrants action? Interesting approach.
In any case, when it comes to infringing on our rights under the 4th Amendment, warrantless wiretaps that sweep in huge amounts of data strike me as pretty significant.
Quote: "Makes me wonder where you went to school, because most of this stuff is pretty easy to find."
What does where I went to school have to do with finding "stuff"?
June 23, 2008 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's called being educated and informed and not pretending that this shit started last night. As such, we can't expect it to change overnight. Where you went to school seems relevant, because you don't seem all that interested in learning the facts.
The FISA issue is no different from any number of Constitutionally-challenged things we have done in this country and certainly not the most heinous. We have yet to live up to our lofty goals and ambitions as a country. Ever. The Constitution was being violated before the ink was dry.
To hold Obama to some sort of standard that no one has ever followed in this country, ever, seems a little unfair. Why not get the guy elected first and then hold him accountable for changing things?
June 24, 2008 4:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
You imply that I advocate not taking action. That is not true. We are taking action right now. We are trying to elect someone who has presented himself as a practical progressive.
I'll take him at his word on that and allow him to maneuver how he needs to in order to win.
Once in office, the bar is raised dramatically. I will expect to see him using the bully pulpit of the presidency to immediately start moving this country to the left. It may take a few years, but I believe his effort will be obvious to us in the netroots.
If he fails in that, I will be the first one to line up and see him replaced in 2012.
Until he is elected, though, we must win in the environment in which we find ourselves. That means a large majority of your fellow citizens having been scared shitless by the government who think 4th amendment violations only apply to guilty people.
We may wish it were otherwise, but that doesn't make it so.
June 24, 2008 6:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
What is your problem, exactly? Maybe you're just firing off indiscriminately, seizing on one comment and running with it?
Voting in support of the so-called FISA compromise is the wrong thing to do. That there have been more egregious infringements on the 4th Amendment in the past doesn't lead me to be complacent about this latest (possible) infringement.
That said, none of this has caused me to back off on my support for Obama one bit. I think he's a terrific candidate, a visionary with great political instincts. But, on the FISA compromise, I disagree with him, and I hope he surprises us by showing a little leadership this week in the Senate. If he doesn't, so be it. I'll be curious to read one day what that was all about.
So ya got that? I support Obama whole-heartedly, but I disagree with him about the FISA bill. Now sit down and have a xanax or something.
June 24, 2008 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Supporting his run for president and agreeing that he has the potential to be a visionary requires that we batten down the hatches and stay together on this shit.
You know why republicans win elections? Because they stay together despite idealogical differences within the party. The Religious Right doesn't chop the Corporate Right off at the knees every time they do something that offends Jesus.
Pretending that the FISA bill is some sort of new assault on the Constitution is intellectually lazy as well. The original FISA was unconstitutional. The 4th Amendment is violated on a daily at the federal, state and local levels - where is all the furor over that?
Not taking a longer view on this issue and stirring up passions against our candidate is a bit self-defeating in my view. If you can't see that, we'll have to agree to disagree.
Now go take a Ritalin or something.
June 24, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
the thing is that Obama has shown himself to be what some of us always knew he was: a politician. I'm glad someone up in the thread admits that "we don't know what Obama will do," because we've NEVER really known that.
Obama was a blank slate, a mirror for people to look into and see what they wanted to see. now that they're learning that he's no different from the rest of those nasty people in Washington, they're disillusioned.
personally I think it's a good thing--surely preferable to following Him to touch the hem of His cloak. once we all remember that nobody gets that far to the presidency WITHOUT being a conniving politician, we can look at his views on the issues with our blinders off. we may not always like what we see, but at least we'll really be seeing.
June 23, 2008 11:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
More uniformed troll drivel about this and that and the other thing. Obama's blank slate, empty suit, just like all the rest, eats babies for breakfast, blah, blah, blah, ad naseum. Can you please come up with something new for me to counter? This shit is just getting repetitive now.
Do you know what the thing really is?
Obama showed he could be pragmatic and practical and take a longer view on this issue. Barack understands that as of today, the frame is terrorism and he must operate within that frame to a certain extent. The time to change mainstream American perceptions about the War on Terror or the War on Drugs or the War on Poverty is not in the middle of a general election campaign.
Do you seriously think that makes good tactical sense given what we know about the majority of our well-meaning and good-hearted by informationally-deficient and naive fellow citizens?
Obama wrote two deeply personal and deeply revealing books. His speeches are among the most viewed clips on YouTube. He has a twenty-year record of service to local Chicago communities, in state government and in Washington DC. He has a well-written and comprehensive website that lays out his policy prescriptions on a number of our most important issues. If he was ever a blank slate to anyone, there is a TON of information to choose from whatever your preferred method of research entails.
Where I see a keen understanding of the limitations within our current system, you see a calculating politician. Where I detect a bit of nuance and long-term thinking with this decision, you see at some sort of indication of his "real" views on the issue. Compromise in politics is just that. You don't get what you really want now in order to get what you want even more later. Not a very deep point to get.
Finally, you hit just about every troll talking point in this post - from Obama The Conniving Politico to Obama The Sainted to Obama The Blank Slate. If you don't want to be considered a troll, perhaps you could lay off the trollish behavior?
I have no problem discussing this topic in its full context, but your framing is inherently flawed and intellectually dishonest.
June 24, 2008 6:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course he's a politician. But he's also a terrific candidate. My view of him has not changed, even if it appears he's about to do the wrong thing on FISA. We'll just have to keep on him.
June 24, 2008 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Putting aside whether Obama should or should not go "all in" on the FISA thing, I do want to take a second to defend MoveOn. Your diary is just way too dismissive of them. Sure there have been some controversies and at times they've seemed politically tone deaf (I actually agreed with the Betrayus ad, just to be up front about it-though I realize it went over like a lead balloon). But in general, MoveOn is out there fighting the good fight as best they can. They and all their members are on the right side of this and like a lot of organizations and different people, they are asking Obama to take a firm stand. He doesn't have to listen to them, of course.
June 24, 2008 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Quote: "If you can't see that, we'll have to agree to disagree."
Jeez, what a freaking asshole you are!
By all means, let's agree to disagree.
June 24, 2008 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
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