In which Barack Obama loses my vote.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/rospars/gGxsZF/commentary
I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to those of you who oppose my decision to support the FISA compromise.
This was not an easy call for me. I know that the FISA bill that passed the House is far from perfect. I wouldn’t have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush’s abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush Administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That’s why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate.
The FISA court’s powers were already ridiculously overreaching. Saying that returning to what is at best a basic separation of powers and at worst a pantomime of asking for a retroactive warrant.
There’s no excuse for supporting the continuation of the warrantless wiretapping program. Obama says that he’d rather support an imperfect compromise than wait for a perfect bill. That’s the most backward thinking I’ve heard come from his normally golden tongue. If a bill is bad, vote against it. It’s as simple as that.
Obama is trying to appear strong on terror at the cost of angering his base. I know a lot of his supporters will ignore or forgive this transgression, but I won’t be among them.
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You are spot on!