Now that Senator Obama has  come out in favor of the FISA "compromise", there seems to be a major effort underway to convince us that the bill isn't really that bad, after all -- or at least that it's not very important, and not worth pestering the poor candidate about.  To compare this effort to the American communist  embrace of Hitler after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact would be bombastic excess, and would risk the invocation of Godwin's law; so I won't do that.  Nor will I spend a lot of time arguing that the bill really is that bad.  It is, and I think we all know it is; but those arguments are already out there, and there's no reason to repeat them.  Instead, I'm going to assert that it doesn't really matter how bad this specific bill is:  what matters is that the "compromise" is part of an eight-year effort to implement a governing philosophy that assumes we, the American people, are frightened children, and that people like Dick Cheney should to be given all the power they need to protect us, and that what we have to do is shut up, get out of the way, and let them get on with it.  This philosophy -- call it the Cheney doctrine --is the central issue in this election, because it's the root of all the other issues we're debating.  The Cheney doctrine gave us the Iraq debacle.  It gave us unprecedented domestic spying, and the politicization of the Justice department, the corporate control of government, the rejection of science, and the mishandling of hurricane Katrina.  This -- this world we're living in, right here -- is an example of what happens when our government decides that we are subjects, rather than citizens.  And we -- the Democratic party, the only viable opposition we have -- cannot capitulate to the Cheney doctrine, and then expect to fix all the problems that come with it after we've won.
Since the beginning of this campaign, what's impressed me most about Senator Obama has been his determination to talk to the American people as if they were actual, functioning adults.  When the Reverend Wright's intemperate remarks began circulating, it was assumed that the Senator would call a presser, announce that he was shocked to find that his minister was a bad, bad man, and be done with it.  Instead, he took the opportunity to give a speech which did something almost unprecedented in modern presidential politics:  instead of patting us on the back for being such lovely, wonderful, generous people, he actually talked to us like grownups, and asked us to think about our assumptions.  Likewise, when gas prices started to hurt, he refused to join Senators Clinton and McCain in the ritual distribution of lollipops.  Throughout the primary season, he's assumed a certain level of intelligence in his listeners.  I liked that, and I'm sorry to see that he's now being advised that he can't win without pandering.  It's wrong, yes -- but I also think it's politically unwise.  It's giving in to the Cheney doctrine; and the voters already have a candidate who support the Cheney doctrine.  
All that said, I fully support Senator Obama, and will continue to give him money and time, as well as my vote in November.  He's still our only hope of undoing the damage of the last eight years.  Like Carthage,  the Republican Party delenda est.   I'd like to see us, however, do it without adopting the weapons of the enemy.