The Osterley Times: Sen Feingold: "A Black Mark on the History of our Country".

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Sen Feingold: "A Black Mark on the History of our Country".

Feingold states that this is, "one of the greatest assaults on our constitution in the history of our country".

He is optimistic that Obama will overturn this legislation, but Obama's vote is a deep, deep disappointment. I'm with Rachel Maddow on this one, I simply don't understand why the Democrats have collapsed on this issue.

And Obama has supplied John McCain with an open goal, as Hillary Clinton has voted against the bill:

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said the vote showed Clinton had more principle than Obama. "Charting Barack Obama's reversals on this issue reads like a road map to political expediency -- further demonstrating he uses his word as a political tool, not a principled commitment. However today, it appears the same cannot be said of Senator Clinton," he said.

It's very hard to mount a defence against the McCain team's attack. For this is the worst kind of political expediency.

Glenn Greenwald spells it out:

Obama's vote in favor of cloture, in particular, cemented the complete betrayal of the commitment he made back in October when seeking the Democratic nomination. Back then, Obama's spokesman -- in response to demands for a clear statement of Obama's views on the spying controversy after he had previously given a vague and noncommittal statement -- issued this emphatic vow:
To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.
But the bill today does include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. Nonetheless, Obama voted for cloture on the bill -- the exact opposition of supporting a filibuster -- and then voted for the bill itself. A more complete abandonment of an unambiguous campaign promise is difficult to imagine.

Jonathan Turley yesterday laid out exactly what the Democrats were about to do: "They are trying to conceal a crime that is hiding in plain view. That everyone can see... Nobody wants to have a confrontation over the fact that the president committed a felony. Not once, but at least thirty times... The founders would have found this incomprehensible."