the rix mix

Barack Obama is supporting the FISA wiretap compromise bill with telecom immunity. It's a bill Bush is willing to sign, which says enough about it. Yeah, I know Obama was against it in February, but that was then & this is now. Sen. Chris Dodd is still against it. So is Sen. Russ Feingold. So is Sen. Arlen Spector, the last I read. Why don't I feel more betrayed?

I was shocked, shocked very early in the presidential primary season to watch so many hard liberals skipping past John Edwards & going right to Barack Obama. His style, & the governing style he promised, had preemptive compromise all over it. Barack came across as the kind of politician who would negotiate before he'd even staked out a strong position he could negotiate from. That's what I didn't like about him. That's why the John Edwards banner stayed on my blog until the nomination was wrapped up.

C'mon you Kossacks, you people who embraced Jim Webb, Bob Casey, & Jon Tester athough you knew they were essentially moderates, you spent the whole damned campaign trying squeeze Barack into a leftist box even as Hillary was staking out more liberal positions on a number of domestic issues including health care & beating up on Obama in places where they still use post offices & parks built during Roosevelt's New Deal. Your problem with Hillary was always about the war & not much else. I voted for Barack with my eyes open, & a distaste for having 4 or 8 more years of Bill Clinton had something to do with it. People project all kinds of hopes on to Obama. I have mine, too. But if you wanted a real liberal with an agenda, he wasn't the #1 go-to candidate when there were still lots of choices.

By the way, the "Yes we can!" chant always reminds me of Sammy Davis Jr.'s autobiography, Yes I Can, wherein The Candyman writes about converting to Judaism & later marrying Swedish blonde bombshell May Britt. A black Jew with a super-goy in 1960. Talk about chutzpah. Sammy was always alright with me.