She makes some very good points in this diary today.
Amnesty, Obama, and the Good FightBefore I quote her, I put most of the blame on the congressional leaders...Reid and Pelosi. They did not have to bring this up for a vote. It was their choice to do so. I believe they put Obama in a bit of a spot when he needs to concentrate on his campaign. It was not needed.
This is a disaster of a bill designed to expand the warrantless eavesdropping powers of the president, to codify the lawbreaking of Bush/Cheney. He's also right that this doesn't need to happen, there's "no reason to destroy the FISA framework." It seems we have a Congress intent upon doing that, nonetheless. But there's a distinction between those bad provisions and retroactive immunity--immunity can't be undone. A President Obama and a Congress with a larger Democratic majority--if it had the political will to do so--could repeal the changes contained in the bill, except for amnesty. Of course, given Obama's willingness to support those bad provisions, too, that possibility is waning.
However, there's no repeal of retroactive immunity--once it's granted, that's that. The terrible precedent of letting these corporations off the hook for knowingly breaking the law can't be undone.
She points out more.
Strategically, if immunity is removed, the bill is once again veto bait. Another stalling tactic, maybe, but one that might work to finally kill this damned thing once and for all this session. Delaying it past the Independence Day recess is the goal for now. Pushing it into the short remaining work period for the session in August would land in the middle of a packed schedule of "must pass" bills. There's the slimmest chance that time would once again work in our favor. Granted, that outcome is not likely. Our Congress, including our nominee, seems intent, as Hunter says, "to quite so cravenly negate their own oversight duties."
It's our job to try to stop them, and to convince our leaders that it's the right thing to do and they'll have our support in doing so
...."Chances are this train is too far from the station to put a stop to. But our job as the left flank of this party, the activist wing, is not to throw up our hands in despair and accept this as a done deal with our bitter acquiescence.
Our job also isn't go off sulking in a fit of pique because our leaders let us down. Blustering, whining, refusing to play anymore is the least helpful and productive of avenues. I keep coming back to Howard Dean and his admonition to us at Yearly Kos in Chicago that we are working on a long term project here to take our party back. Making this party ours again is going to take a lot of work and a long time. We do that by staying engaged. We do that by telling our representatives, including our presidential candidate (who is STILL head and shoulders better than the alternative) what we expect of them and by making their decisions matter.
As long as there is a fight to be had, we're the ones to fight it and to help our allies in Congress fight it. It's our job. If we don't do it, if we don't stand up for progressive values, who will?
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