The Left is Wrong on this FISA Vote

For the last week I’ve watched the Netroots hammer on Barack Obama the way abolitionists once hammered Lincoln, and liberals once hammered Roosevelt.

This was about the FISA Bill, a systematic gutting of the 4th Amendment which passed the Senate today, Obama voting aye.

In a rational world such a bill would never see the light of day. We do not live in a rational world.

What is important about this bill, according to former Nixon attorney John Dean (right — he was Scotty practically before Scotty was born) is that, while the bill strips the telcos of civil immunity for spying on Americans, it does not strip them of criminal immunity.

Why not? Consider the purpose of the bill, which is not to investigate terrorists but to keep the telcos from squealing on the Bush Administration’s crimes. That Administration would never move ahead on any criminal investigation of itself or any friend. It is as hopeless in that regard as the Burmese Junta, and we can only hope it’s not as ruthless as the Mugabe Dictatorship. (We cannot assume that, which is something Democrats need to understand.)

If there were no chance of criminal prosecution, the Bush people would have nothing to bind the telcos to it for the duration of the campaign, or to maintain their silence thereafter, assuming they could pull out the election. This was deliberate on their part.

By approving the bill, without mentioning the lack of criminal immunity, Barack Obama is biding his time, waiting for January, assuming that there will be no coup, as he has assumed all along. A Bush coup would mean true civil war, in which case the right of the people to keep and bear arms would become a key ingredient in Democratic strategy. (If you think the NRA would abide a coup against the Constitution you don’t know the NRA.)

Upon taking office with the current law intact, President Obama would have the power to learn exactly what has happened under this government, and bring it to light. Bringing the crimes of this time to light is far more important than punishing anyone. Light is a better disinfectant than revenge. Revenge merely leads to more revenge, as we saw with Watergate. Light causes permanent changes in the body politic which can turn today’s precedents into cautionary tales.

So what’s the left’s problem? Like the new majorities of past
generations they want to feel they own Obama, that Obama owes them. But
this is counter-productive, both to winning elections as a new movement
and to governing. Only pressure from the left after January will allow
Obama to steer a liberal course. To think otherwise would be to call
last year’s housing market a buying opportunity.

Great Presidents must be independent agents, with wide latitude, strong
majorities, but suspicious, alert, alive supporters. If Obama acted as
Chris Dodd did in this case, he would have nothing left to give, no
leverage next year with the left nor right.

What has struck me about the gentleman from Illinois, in all my study
of him, has been his calm disposition, his ability to glide on top of
the body politic, and to allow contention below him without fully
giving in to its passions. This is a very rare political gift. He will
need it. Any President entering office at such a time as next January
would, if they were to have any hope of success.

This doesn’t mean the left should not continue to raise a Hullaballoo.
We need that wind to blow, to blow hot, to blow loud. But Democrats
have only one horse in this race now and no matter their misgivings
they have to trust the jockey. He has gotten us this far. He can get us
past the finish line.

Which, as I’ve said, is when the real crisis begins.