This one, he's completely wrong about. I like the ways he has compromised on a number of things, and generally he seems good at keeping to what he thinks is important and finding creative ways to work with opponents. But on this, he's just entirely wrong, and it's not a compromise.
I don't think he thinks he was "compromising", and he still intends to try to get telco immunity stripped in conference committee. What he thinks he was doing, based on his responses to open letters, is... basically giving in to a twilight zone style game of chicken from Bush, that goes like this: - Protect America Act expired at the beginning of this year - PAA included a legitimate "bug fix" to FISA: it allowed surveillance of foreign communications that happen to pass through the USA, without warrants - Surveillance begun under the PAA was allowed to continue for 6 months, so those "wiretaps" are expiring. - Bush says if Congress passes a FISA bug fix without telco amnesty, he'll veto it - What if Bush is crazy enough to actually do it, even though he claims the FISA bug fix is needed "to save American lives"? Then he can blame Congress because they didn't legalize the surveillance that needs to be done!
Now, Obama isn't falling for the whole crazy game of chicken the way some Senators are. He'd prefer to pass a FISA bugfix without telco amnesty. But he is falling for the idea that if no FISA bugfix legislation is passed now, it will do serious damage and telco amnesty, while undesirable, is a price worth paying.
He's wrong about that, of course: the Bush administration was breaking the law and doing whatever surveillance they felt like, before it all got made public and the PAA legalized most of it for a while starting in 2006. If Bush wants to play chicken on this, Congress can just not send him a FISA update. He'll continue breaking the law if he feels like it, or he won't in order to score political points.
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Date: 2008-07-10 03:46 am (UTC)I don't think he thinks he was "compromising", and he still intends to try to get telco immunity stripped in conference committee. What he thinks he was doing, based on his responses to open letters, is... basically giving in to a twilight zone style game of chicken from Bush, that goes like this:
- Protect America Act expired at the beginning of this year
- PAA included a legitimate "bug fix" to FISA: it allowed surveillance of foreign communications that happen to pass through the USA, without warrants
- Surveillance begun under the PAA was allowed to continue for 6 months, so those "wiretaps" are expiring.
- Bush says if Congress passes a FISA bug fix without telco amnesty, he'll veto it
- What if Bush is crazy enough to actually do it, even though he claims the FISA bug fix is needed "to save American lives"? Then he can blame Congress because they didn't legalize the surveillance that needs to be done!
Now, Obama isn't falling for the whole crazy game of chicken the way some Senators are. He'd prefer to pass a FISA bugfix without telco amnesty. But he is falling for the idea that if no FISA bugfix legislation is passed now, it will do serious damage and telco amnesty, while undesirable, is a price worth paying.
He's wrong about that, of course: the Bush administration was breaking the law and doing whatever surveillance they felt like, before it all got made public and the PAA legalized most of it for a while starting in 2006. If Bush wants to play chicken on this, Congress can just not send him a FISA update. He'll continue breaking the law if he feels like it, or he won't in order to score political points.