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Academic

: Essentially Contested America

Obama Betrays His Supporters as well as the Better Angels of His Nature

By Robert Justin Lipkin

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Progressive democrats supporting Barack Obama must be extremely disappointed regarding the senator's support of a quintessential (George W.) Bushian statute. Consider: "The Democratic-led Congress this afternoon hyp:

voted to put an end to the NSA spying scandal, as the Senate approved a bill--approved last week by the House--to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, terminate all pending lawsuits against them, and vest whole new warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President. The vote in favor of the new FISA bill was 69-28. Barack Obama joined every Senate Republican (and every House Republican other than one) by voting in favor of it, while his now-vanquished primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, voted against it. John McCain wasn't present for any of the votes, but shared Obama's support for the bill. The bill will now be sent to an extremely happy George Bush, who already announced that he enthusiastically supports it, and he will sign it into law very shortly." For the entire article click this.

It is difficult to understand just what Senator Obama is doing and why he's doing it. Does his gallop to the center represent his true beliefs or is it just politics as usual? In October 2007, he vowed to vote against any bill immunizing telecom companies; now, he votes for it on the ground that it's a "compromise." "Compromise" of what? Policy or principle? Just what's going on? Here's one possible explanation.

Senator Obama must not take for granted those inspired by, what seems now, to be empty rhetoric. The Obama phenomena promised to be the most significant change in American politics and society for at least the past five decades. What is the Obama phenomena now? More important, where is Senator Obama going?

Full post as published by Essentially Contested America on July 11, 2008 (boomark / email).