Senator AWOL

Barack Obama is going to try and play out the string on the FISA bill.

Barack Obama is keeping his position on the new FISA bill close to the vest -- so close, in fact, that even his aides don't know what it is!

During a conference call this afternoon with reporters, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs was first asked whether the Obama campaign would schedule time for the candidate to vote in the Senate next week, and how Obama would actually vote on the policy. Gibbs initially said he didn't know about the scheduling, without addressing the main subject.

Later on, another reporter asked specifically about Obama's position. "I better check on that, too," Gibbs said. "I honestly -- that's what I need to work on, as well."

Courage!

Democrats have now fully embraced the very illegal actions Rep. Kucinich cited in his articles of impeachment. And Sen. Obama is highly unlikely to ride in gallantly and put a stop to it. We have a deeply conservative, authoritarian Congress, evidenced by the fact that more Republicans approve of it than Democrats. (If you can stomach it, read that whole Greenwald post.) The "bipartisanship" of this bill and every national security legislation is entirely one-sided, in the direction of the most loathed President in American history and his partners in Congress. The craven Democratic leadership doesn't even bother to make so much as a compelling ARGUMENT against it. Obama has, at least, but his follow-through in this case has been completely useless. Behold the Good Obama, making a speech:

My approach is guided by a simple premise: I have confidence that our system of justice is strong enough to deal with terrorists; Senator McCain does not. That is not the same as giving these detainees the same full privileges as Americans citizens. I never said that, the Supreme Court never said that, and I would never do that as President of the United States. So either Senator McCain’s campaign doesn’t understand what the Court decided, or they are distorting my position.

I have made the same arguments as Republicans like Arlen Specter, countless Generals and national security experts, and the largely Republican-appointed Supreme Court of the United States of America – which is that we need not throw away 200 years of American jurisprudence while we fight terrorism. We do not need to choose between our most deeply held values, and keeping this nation safe. That’s a false choice, and I completely reject it.

Now in their attempt to distort my position, Senator McCain’s campaign has said I want to pursue a law enforcement approach to terrorism. This is demonstrably false, since I have laid out a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy that includes military force, intelligence operations, financial sanctions and diplomatic action. But the fact that I want to abide by the United States Constitution, they say, shows that I have a “pre-9/11 mindset.”

Well I refuse to be lectured on national security by people who are responsible for the most disastrous set of foreign policy decisions in the recent history of the United States. The other side likes to use 9/11 as a political bludgeon. Well, let’s talk about 9/11.

The people who were responsible for murdering 3,000 Americans on 9/11 have not been brought to justice. They are Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and their sponsors – the Taliban. They were in Afghanistan. And yet George Bush and John McCain decided in 2002 that we should take our eye off of Afghanistan so that we could invade and occupy a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. The case for war in Iraq was so thin that George Bush and John McCain had to hype the threat of Saddam Hussein, and make false promises that we’d be greeted as liberators. They misled the American people, and took us into a misguided war.

Here are the results of their policy. Osama bin Laden and his top leadership – the people who murdered 3000 Americans – have a safe-haven in northwest Pakistan, where they operate with such freedom of action that they can still put out hate-filled audiotapes to the outside world. That’s the result of the Bush-McCain approach to the war on terrorism.

Behold, the Bad Obama, acting on FISA:

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His national security working group is filled with Clinton-era retreads and Beltay denizens because there is no Democratic bench on national security and foreign policy. They are worse than Republicans on this score, for while Republicans are authoritarian imperialists at least you know where they stand. Democrats show by their actions a total weakness and lack of conviction that suggests they either agree with American hegemony and the imperial Presidency or they're too beaten down like helpless dogs to raise a peep. And so, with no meaningful opposition, we get legal theories, soon to be made the law of the land, like this:

Sen. Kit Bond was on NPR this morning explaining why telecom amnesty was justified and uttered what is the most revealing quote of the last year at least:

"When the Government tells you to do something, I think you all recognize, uh, that that is something that you need to do."

He forgot to say that we should click our heels and salute before obeying, but that omission notwithstanding, Bond has brilliantly put his finger perfectly on the bipartisan ethos of our ruling class. Pardon me, but I just need to write that again: "When the Government tells you to do something, I think you all recognize, uh, that that is something that you need to do." Clearly, Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi and we-will-see-today- how-many-other-Democrats concur.

105, Glenn. And they did so proudly, despite having the bill for less than 24 hours and debating it for less than one.

We won't forget this. We could give up on politics entirely, but that's what the corrupt Democratic establishment would want. I'm not interested in their desires.