Skipping a vote to avoid controversy is worse than taking a stand, even the 'wrong' stand. It would be nothing but cowardice. If he really believes what he says he'll vote against it.

Then again he skipped a LOT of votes in Illinois as a State Senator, probably for similar political reasons.

Because the Bush administration would look pretty silly going to FISA after the fact to get a warrant for spying the Democratic National Committee.

This way, they can use the excuse of terrorists, and spy on any one they want to.

Sounds fair. Let's get down to brass tacks, though (I've always wanted to say that):

Which is better? Knowing someone is a political ass master, or not? Which is going to allow for the possibility of change back toward a government by and for the people?

People laugh at Jesse Ventura when he goes on Larry King and condemns both parties for exactly this kind of bill. But that's one ex-pro-wrestler who has Washington pegged PERFECTLY.

Sure, it's a new pair of pants, but they're really a lot like your old pair of pants. Two legs, a few pockets, belt loops, zipper, etc. Maybe you get a button-fly! Or a pair with some extra pockets! But, regardless, they're still just pants.

Learning from watergate means they'll be more careful about getting caught. Such as making sure there are no tapes that inconveniently crop up.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. That's the line of crap they give us proles & the Telcos have squadrons of attack lawyers who should have knew better, if in fact they were consulted at all. Qwest had enough sense to say no, the rest of them can die in a fucking fire.

They were asked to help their country and got some bad legal advice.

The companies knew they were breaking the law. They have the best FISA lawyers in the world on retainer but decided to break the law anyway.

But it really isn't about the corporations or the outcome of law suits. By granting them immunity the illegal Bush programs will never make it to court and thus the public will never know exactly what went on or how extensive the spying is. Do you seriously believe the Bush administration is obeying any laws at all in an area they can keep in the dark just by mumbling "National Security"?

Well? A politician who needs to compromise in order to get where they want is nothing new.

A good negotiator will give up something he doesn't need for something he does. He doesn't give up something important for something trivial.

Why not show in your post that Obama needs the intelligence community and cannot afford to anger his constituents who have worked hard on a compromise?

If he is elected President, he will be the "intelligence community's" boss. If he isn't elected then as Senator he still holds power over them, not the other way around.

Granted, this compromise stills appears to be a potential death knell for the separation of the real church (big corporate money) and state

A vote for a Democrat or Republican is a vote for a politician beholden to the national religion (money worship and corporations). Both are corporate funded entities. Neither is pro-human, both are pro-corporate.

condemning someone for doing what may be necessary doesn't seem very productive especially when the alternative is someone who works toward very sinister ends as well (looking at you, Mr. McCain).

Dammit man, there are more than two candidates for President!!!!! So far I plan on voting for Barr, even though he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. I stopped voting for "the lesser of two evils a while back.

If you say "if you don't vote Democrat or Republican your vote is wasted", well if that's so then a vote for loser Gore was a wasted vote too, now wasn't it? You should have voted for Bush rather than wasting your vote on a loser. Just look at the popularity polls, vote for the guy you think has the best chance of winning and vote for him so you don't waste your vote.

If you follow that twisted corporate logic, then I plan on wasting my vote this November. Wasting my vote on a loser is better than voting for a man who wants me in prison.

Simply put, it's an election year and none of the Democrats want to appear "soft on terrorism/defense/insert-the-buzzword-of-the-day-here", out of fear of losing their jobs.

Unfortunately for "we the people", their fear means the loss of more of our civil liberties.

Show me a politician who is not a "corporate whore". The may start out with the greatest of motives, and claim not to be corporate shills but eventually they all get bought and paid for by companies that want something, generally something that would otherwise be illegal, immoral, or just plain wrong. The problem is not the men and women that we elect, it is the lobbyist that work for the corporations and foreign interests that have free reign to manipulate them once we elect them.

If Obama votes to pass this, you know he is compromised.

If he skips the vote, you know he will not stand up for what is right in the face of intimidation by big business etc - which is almost as bad as the first choice.

If he votes the bill down, then he'll really be showing something...

Unfortunately I don't expect him to show much of anything when it really comes down to taking a risk.

He sounds great, and certainly is better than the other candidate(s), but anyone can get up and talk about freedom and healing, etc. It is an entirely diferent thing to stand up in front of the machine and refuse to play ball or roll over. If he cannot do this, then we're in for more of the same.

That's a load of crap and should be downmodded to oblivion. Obama had an exceptional attendance record in the Illinois Senate, where he cast over 4000 votes in eight years.

Perhaps you're instead referring to his "present" votes, of which he cast about 130 total. Of course, if you knew anything at all about the Illinois legislature you'd know that his use of the "present" vote is entirely normal. And if you tracked his votes you'd see that it falls in line with his policy of using "present" to identify bills that either require further refinement, are unconstitutional at their face, or as part of a larger policy strategy (such as with Planned Parenthood). That's why in Illinois the "present" vote is called a "'no' with an explanation."

Look at the voting by party. In the House, weren't the Republicans nearly unanimously for the bill and Democrats split nearly evenly?

Of course the bill is going to pass, and that strikes me as a massive weakness in any representative system.

Sometimes what's good for the representatives will be at odds with what's good for the rest of the public. The representatives are the ones who get to vote on the issue - whose well-being do you think they're going to choose?

Short of direct democracy (which is impractical) I unfortunately can't really see a way around this.

Come on, do you really think there's a non-trivial number of people willing to take up arms against the government at this stage? Hell, most of the most strident 2nd amendment boosters are the ones that are most vocally defending these types of bills and defending the President's right to take away our civil liberties in the name of "security".

Saying we have the right to overthrow the government by force is nice and all, but if you think it's actually going to happen any time soon, no matter how many freedoms are taken away, you're delusional. The only way to overthrow governments these days is via military coup, and the military doesn't seem in any hurry to get into politics in this country, and I doubt we'd be in any better shape if they did.

The rest of the world doesn't get to make the decision about when to make that stand. Americans do. We aren't there yet. We haven't even come to the point where people are willing to try to elect an outsider yet (i.e. outside of current political circles). If and when that happens, then we'll see whether our democracy holds up.

Nobody wants to believe that the people running the show are doing it for themselves and pulling the strings to make themselves fat and happy at the expense of everyone else, but eventually, that realization could set in. We've got a long way to go before we're likely to see any real stand against the government.

No.

You think that the a Democratic president would have invaded Iraq? Imprisoned and tortured innocent people? Pushed for telecom immunity in the first place? Undermined the military? Publicly exposed the identity of undercover agents? Ignored New Orleans after Katrina? Undermined habeas corpus?

So, no. I disagree with Obama on this one, and hope he comes out strongly against it. But I'm not so shallow or pedantic as to think this makes the parties equal in any way.

You crudely assume that every slashdotter is located in the USA.

If the comment doesn't apply to you, then it was probably not addressed to you, and complaining about it otherwise is worthless noise. Not every comment on the Internet is necessarily meant as a personal note to you, even if the submitter wasn't extra super careful to make sure that the text reads that way.

Don't read comments about politics on foreign countries then get upset when the comments on that article are primarily centric to that country! Sheesh.

Indeed. To call it a "no with an explanation" is misleading at best, and just plain completely wrong at worst. And I support Obama.

Present == Abstain.

I'm assuming that you are more interested in scoring partisan points than in keeping the facts straight. Otherwise you would know that:

1) Most Democrats voted against the bill.
2) The only opposition to the bill is coming from Democrats.
3) Bush, the guy who vetoes everything Democrats do, does not intend to veto.
4) Without Republicans in both congress and the white house, this bill would not have a snowball's chance in hell of passing.

But I see your point, the summary should clarify that Dodd and Feingold are Democrats. It seems that the only time the (D) appears is when Democrats are being portrayed in a negative light.

This is why your constitution protected your right to bear arms.

Actually, it's the Bill of Rights and not the Constitution, and it doesn't grant the right to bear arms. The Constitution and Bill of Rights don't grant rights to the people, they provide a list of rights that the government should be unable to take away from the people.

As for the right to bear arms, you seem to suffer from the same misunderstanding as most of the people thinking they are granted the right to own machine guns. The actual text is, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." First words: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary..." In other words, I don't think they had the idea of people owning guns to protect their home and overthrow the government, but more for the idea of protecting the country against attack.

Not that overthrowing the government was something they didn't consider and even potentially expected in the future. A lot of people are familiar with Thomas Jefferson's famous words, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." But, war, any kind of war, should be the option of last resort, our present administration notwithstanding. You throw it out there as if all options have been exhausted, but come January, there will be a transfer of power. Now, if that doesn't happen, then of course, an overthrow of the government might be in order, but to suggest that we ought to overthrow the government now is more ridiculous than the invasion of Iraq.

"In other words, I don't think they had the idea of people owning guns to protect their home and overthrow the government, but more for the idea of protecting the country against attack."

False. The "well regulated militia" part is a subordinate clause. And, if (as some scholars argue) you take "well regulated militia" to mean "all adult males, properly equipped to fight", the amendment still works.

If you read the supporting documents of the Founders, this becomes clear. It's quite explicit that the 2nd amendment is framed to be the final defense against tyranny.

Such as making sure there are no emails that inconveniently crop up.

Fixed that for you.

You simply gather together a bunch of morally bankrupt lobbyists and get major corporation to fund them and provide them with sufficient capital to funnel that cash to a bunch of criminal politicians. Also you arrange for a proportion of those bribes to go to, well, somewhat less than Christian leaders of the various Christian right organisations, to ensure a whole lot of blind, listen to the words but ignore the actions, voters , do the right 'er' wrong thing.

To push it all along you get the government department that is meant to ensure that mass media organisations do not become monopolistic, do not become a one eyed voice for the majority shareholders ands sociopath corporate executives, to do the exact opposite a work towards turning mass media into a propaganda network for endless war and corporate fascism.

Now it also helps if you get the telecoms to start monitoring everyone who disagrees or might even consider disagreeing as well as every opposition politician and their supporters, to keep one step ahead of them and to ensure you can enact measures to isolate them.

There you go, everything you need to over throw a government and blow me down but, you don't have to look to far to see the evidence of it. Now I can think of one reason why the immunity bill might make it through. It really all boils down to how much dirt the telecoms were able to dig up on the various political leaders and how much of this dirt would appear as evidence if those telecoms were prosecuted. Take a very careful look at the ones voting for immunity, they are likely not voting for the telecoms immunity from prosecution, so much as they are, voting for their own immunity from prosecution, really nasty stuff.

Such as making sure there are no tapes that inconveniently crop up.

The difference is, Nixon ordered the taping mechanism installed, and then deleted 18.5 minutes. Which is why there isn't that much incriminating information (about Watergate) on the tapes. A bunch of embarassing things, sure. I think some talk of Watergate. But no orders to do it, etc.

The e-mails that were deleted, on the other hand, were ordered to be kept by Congress.

There's a difference between destroying the private notes you decided to take, before they are subponeaed (presumably), and destroying records you are legally obligated to keep.

"Perhaps you're instead referring to his "present" votes, of which he cast about 130 total. Of course, if you knew anything at all about the Illinois legislature you'd know that his use of the "present" vote is entirely normal."

It may be allowed, but the truth is, voting "present" is just a way for a politician to avoid taking a stand or going on record.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just didn't take the time to read all six sentences of my comment. I would also encourage you to go back and reread my original comment, or just do a little research on the Illinois State Legislature if you're actually curious about how the "present" vote is used. Either way, please stop pretending to speak authoritatively on subjects you know nothing about. It just makes you look like an ass for getting it so wrong.