Here’s the FISA bill that Barack Obama voted for after saying he wouldn’t. It’s hugely complicated.
Here’s a Volokh post that says coverage of it has been misleading.
What isn’t misleading is that he voted for a bill that he said earlier that he would oppose. (TPM has a timeline.) In his last statement he said that the bill had changed.
How, exactly? What was the tipping point, and why?
Did he do it to get votes? Surely he should have known that it would cost him the grace and support of his base. And slow his money river as well.
Did he do it on principle? Obviously two principles were involved. The civil liberties one he espoused last January and the security one that drove his vote six months later. One is a left principle, the other a right. The right one won. No pun intended.
Obama’s campaign is about getting past partisanship, at least in part. But this vote hardly did that. Instead it pissed off his most fervent partisans.
I’m also not sure the bill made the country safer, either. But I dunno. As I said, it’s a complicated bill. Maybe one or more of the rest of ya’ll can figger it out.
Meanwhile, it hurt him, bad. That helps McCain.
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