Never Mind Details, Barack - Just Give Us Some of that Change!

I just have to admit it: Barack is beginning to give me an uneasy feeling. In his campaign, he promised to filibuster any FISA re-write legislation that contained retroactive immunity for telecom companies that cooperated in President George Bush's program of felonious wiretapping. Here's what his campaign had to say in October, 2007: "To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies." That's clear, all right. Let's imagine it in action. A bill comes to the floor of the Senate which contains retroactive immunity for telecom companies which cooperated in President George W. Bush's program of felonious wiretapping. Under these circumstances, how should Senator Obama react in order to fulfill his campaign pledge? Let's make it multiple choice to simplify the test. Barack should:

A. Filibuster the legislation to keep it from becoming law.
B. Move up the schedule for his trip to Iraq so he can skip the debate and vote.
C. Vote for cloture so that all debate (including filibustering) is brought to an end.
D. Vote for cloture and then vote for the bill granting immunity to telecom companies for their cooperation in President George W. Bush's program of
felonious wiretapping.

Well, we can certainly eliminate C. That's a position directly contrary to filibustering. D. is a ridiculous suggestion; of course Barack would not end all debate and then proceed to vote for a bill to which he was so opposed he was going to stop it from coming to a vote at all. B's out; he's not in Iraq. But they voted on Wednesday, and there was no filibuster, so A doesn't work. Hmmm. I think I'll just flip to the back of the book and get the answer, because the suspense is killing me.

The correct answer is D.

Huh?

Okay, I already knew, and ever since I found out, I've been trying to rationalize my way around his complete reversal of position. A few posts back, I took his, ahem, flip-flop as an aberration necessary for debating John W. McCain; you can't be such a softie on terrorists that you insist on compliance with the Bill of Rights in the government's relationship with its citizens. Hell, what is this? Denmark? We've got wars to fight and Muslims to kill, and if an American is talking on the phone overseas or sending an e-mail somewhere outside the borders (and here's a little secret for you: if an American is talking on the phone to anyone or sending an e-mail anywhere), he's just got to realize that Big Brother is watching. It's for your own good. Who knows what you're up to? Well, the Feds are going to find out because we've just done away with the two pesky impediments to free-for-all government spying: the FISA law and the Fourth Amendment.

Maybe it was unrealistic to think the Bill of Rights could survive nineteen Arabs, mostly from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, commandeering our own planes and knocking buildings down, killing a lot of people. That was just a deal-breaker. For some reason. So the modern, post-9/11 Republican and Democratic Parties now operate in a new arena, one where Constitutional rules simply no longer apply. We're just winging it from here on out. That is neither exaggeration nor hyperbole. Senators such as Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania take to the floor of the Senate and declare, in grandiloquent prose, that it is unconstitutional to eliminate habeas corpus through the Military Commissions Act. He then proceeds to vote for the bill, despite his oath of office, which is to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. And every Senator who voted yesterday, including Barack Obama, for the evisceration of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unlawful searches and seizures without a duly authorized warrant also violated his or her oath of office (and thanks again, Dianne Feinstein, for selling out your liberal constituency here in California).

It is very dangerous to operate without legal principles, without a Constitutional framework. We're told, however, that this is all just normal politics. Take this post yesterday on the Huffingtonpost from someone named Peter Clothier, who advises that our misperceptions about what's going on owe to brain-hemisphere problems:

"We progressives need to get our left and right brains working together, and to do this means first recognizing the conflict, which amounts to a significant "left brain" misunderstanding about what Obama stands for. Obama believes it is less important to defeat Republicans on every issue than to repair government so that good ideas can begin to flourish again."

So that's it: I'm using the wrong half of my brain. Clothier says that liberals need to let go of their "pet issues" and see the bigger picture. Barack is a centrist who's going to unite the country and work in a truly bipartisan way. Okay. But what is going to be the basis of that unity? Barack Obama has declared a truly astounding "centrism" lately, on a wide array of constitutional issues. For this is the slippery slope we're on: protection of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution has become a "pet issue" of those on the Left. Let's let it go so we finally get some "good government" to solve real problems. Or, let's execute mentally retarded child rapists. Never mind the Eighth Amendment, we need "good government." While we're at it, let's not worry too much about the First Amendment, with its separation of church and state. If we get fixated on it, we'll lose out on a chance at good government. The Second Amendment interpretation of Justice Scalia was ridiculous and impossible to apply rationally; that's okay, why do we need the 2nd, if we don't need the 1st, 4th or 8th? You know, actually the 5th Amendment's due process clause is kind of in the way too, and it was certainly ignored in the Jose Padilla case. Let's throw that out. Now we're getting somewhere. We're on the way to Good Government!

The kicker, of course, is that on every one of these issues, John McCain is much, much worse. With the Maverick, we go way beyond a congenital indifference to unconstitutional activity, as we have with Bush -- McCain doesn't even know what the Constitution says.

I'm not going to pile on Barack Obama. His fund raising has taken a serious hit as disillusioned supporters emotionally process all of this. All that's needed to revive his candidacy is to listen to McCain some more, maybe another hilarious joke about weaponized cigarettes exported to Iran.

What's that word the kids use? Whatever.

I see why they use it.