Letting the Fish Off the Hook

Trey Smith

To this day, many people identify mid-2008 as the time they realized what type of politician Barack Obama actually is. Six months before, when seeking the Democratic nomination, then-Sen. Obama unambiguously vowed that he would filibuster "any bill" that retroactively immunized the telecom industry for having participated in the illegal Bush NSA warrantless eavesdropping program.

But in July 2008, once he had secured the nomination, a bill came before the Senate that did exactly that - the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 - and Obama not only failed to filibuster as promised, but far worse, he voted against the filibuster brought by other Senators, and then voted in favor of enacting the bill itself. That blatant, unblinking violation of his own clear promise - actively supporting a bill he had sworn months earlier he would block from a vote - caused a serious rift even in the middle of an election year between Obama and his own supporters.

Critically, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 did much more than shield lawbreaking telecoms from all forms of legal accountability. Jointly written by Dick Cheney and then-Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Jay Rockefeller, it also legalized vast new, sweeping and almost certainly unconstitutional forms of warrantless government eavesdropping.
~ from GOP and Feinstein Join to Fulfill Obama's Demand for Renewed Warrantless Eavesdropping by Glenn Greenwald ~

In sharing this snippet, you might think it is a means to decry Barack Obama for going back on his word. I suppose I could pursue that angle, but saying one thing and then doing the opposite is really par for the course in the political realm. Obama certainly isn't the first politician to do this...and he certainly won't be the last.

My concern is for his supporters who try to sweep uncomfortable truths like this one under the proverbial rug. Instead of simply stating the obvious -- that Obama went back on what he pledged -- his ardent supporters engage in mental gymnastics trying to justify or rationalize his about-face. Even worse, when some of us point out the obvious discrepancies between words and actions, we are attacked as being silly purists.

I get that a person could still support Obama based on a person's belief in his overall record. In weighing that record against the potential Romney record, I can understand -- though definitely do not agree -- how a person might prefer Obama. But to dismiss out-of-hand situations in which he has pledged one thing and then forcefully gone in the other direction is a bit disingenuous, to put it mildly.

If you want to support a particular candidate or officeholder, fine. You should at least embrace that person, warts and all. We each have warts; there are no saints among us. All I ask is that you quit treating Barack Obama like Saint Obama!