Great post, Dave, but ask yourself this: might a neocon in phony progressive clothing be more dangerous than an overt neocon? Obama would have more political juice than McCain to press on with neocon schemes for Mideast military aggression and domestic police state programs. I no longer have any confidence in my understanding of who Obama really is. - Sean McBride

I have never seen a lucid explanation of why Obama voted this way. What does he hope to gain? - Brian Sullivan

Pretty sure he wanted to deny McC the ability to run an ad saying he's soft on terrorism. - Dave Winer

That sounds plausible - Brian Sullivan

The general consensus I've read is that now that Obama's facing the general election, he's playing toward the middle to get more votes. A lot of his hard-left progressive supporters are freaking out. - Akiva

Akiva -- the pro-FISA position is hard neocon right, not "the middle." Most Americans are disenchanted with and strongly oppose most neocon policies, including the Iraq War and the mad neocon scramble to expand the Iraq War to Iran. If Obama loses his base, the steam will go out of his campaign with a great rush. There are strong indications that this has already happened. (Hillary Clinton lost the nomination largely because she moved too far to the neocon right, under the prodding of Mark Penn.) - Sean McBride

People who see this as a right-left thing are not paying attention. The Constitution is what all Americans agree on, and it's what each of these people, Senators, Presidents etc, swear to uphold. It's an honor and trust thing in addition to being a freedom thing. Any conservative who isn't pissed off by this isn't actually a conservative at all. It's about the most conservative issue there is. - Dave Winer

@Akiva I agree, but now he has to contend with charged of being a flip flopper (and I personally see him as one now). He went from saying he would filibuster the bill to voting yes. @Tim I completely agree. Obama is just another crappy politician in my book now. - JP Landry

Obama sees three straight months of declining donations http://tinyurl.com/5dzuqm - Sean McBride

Democrats have been beat up on national security for so long that they seem to have internalized the criticism - kind of a political version of battered wife syndrome. Obama offers some improvement over this, but obviously he still believes this as well. In any case, Larry Lessig has the best breakdown of this that I've so far seen: http://lessig.org/blog... - Eric P

Dave is right. When I visited Washington DC I had both Democrats and Republicans say they supported FISA. Why? Because inside the beltway they are really freaked out about terrorists. Remember, Flight 93 was aimed at them. Listen to our interviews with Congressman John Culberson and you'll hear a pretty good defense of FISA. I'll go get you the URL. - Robert Scoble

Here's the Culberson interview, filmed by Andrew Feinberg: http://qik.com/video/112754 -- I'll try to find the place where he talked about FISA. - Robert Scoble

Sums up my thoughts. - Jeremy Franklin

Must read in Salon: http://tinyurl.com/6kgs48 "But was Obama's position on FISA really a matter of political calculation? If so, he needs to check his math. By almost any measure, political passions on this issue are heavily concentrated among the FISA bill's opponents. There was no real voter pressure on Obama to support the bill. Public opinion polls have consistently shown the bill generally and telecomm community in particular aren't very popular (see this Glenn Greenwald summary of early polling about FISA and an ACLU poll taken in January of this year). " - Sean McBride

Sean, exactly -- that's why I said it was a fight he should have welcomed. Finally an election issue that's worth debating, not just in stupid ads, but among the electorate. Let's have a referendum on whether we believe in the Constitution. - Dave Winer

Even Hillary voted against it. I, too, am disappointed in Obama. - Doug Kaye

He starts getting interesting at about 13 minutes left in the conversation. Says he wants government out of our lives. At 7 minutes left in the conversation he says he looked to what Matt Thornberry told him. You really should listen to this video at this point. - Robert Scoble

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes H.R. 6304 - Menendez (D-NJ), Nay - Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay http://tinyurl.com/55suff FISA Amendments Act of 2007 - http://www.senate.gov/legisla... - paul mooney

Dave, yes -- what is so disappointing about this is that Obama missed a golden opportunity to cement his reputation as a candidate with strong principles and backbone. His campaign would have been elevated and energized by doing the right thing. Instead, now survey the ruin among his base and his declining contributions. (Btw, I define myself as a "progressive libertarian" -- I support liberals and conservatives who value the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights and government accountability and transparency. I am allergic to authoritarians on the right and left. As you remarked, this is not a left or right issue.) - Sean McBride

As a longtime McCain supporter (and supporter of this tremendously unpopular surveillance program), its interesting to see the disappointment and disenfranchisement people feel over Obama's position. I understand that most people here disagree with both myself and Obama on this matter, and that's fine. But I think its pretty naive to expect a politician (and make no mistake, Obama is and always has been a consummate politician) to not do something like this. (cont'd) - Curtis Schweitzer

(cont'd from above) People on the right have long been making the case that, based on his past, Obama is not an "agent of change" and that his image as a political outsider isn't based in reality. This, I think, proves that point. Perhaps its politically unwise for me, a McCain supporter to say this, but maybe a better route is not to stop supporting Obama financially, but rather to try to change his mind, even after the fact. (cont'd) - Curtis Schweitzer

The latest poll which came out today shows that McCain and Obama are now within 3 points of each other, and that Obama lost something like 12 points. The only explanation I have for this is his vote on FISA. Why did he vote yes on this when he could have just abstained? I believe that he thinks with all the problems the US is confronting and all the reforms he wants to do, he needs all the executive power he can get. This is not about liberal/conservative, it's about concentration of power. - Paul Denlinger

(cont'd from above) What is most certainly unwise is pretending that Obama is somehow "above" the political process or that he really means what he says about reforming it. Because he isn't above it, and he can't possibly follow through on his promises of reform. And that's ok. He's a politician that you agree with on most things-- it is unrealistic and frankly a little thickheaded to cease supporting him simply because of a disagreement. He's going to do what it takes to get elected, and sometimes (cont'd) - Curtis Schweitzer

(cont'd from above)...sometimes that means doing things that you may not agree with. It will happen. (McCain and I disagree on a great many number of things, but that doesn't mean I will stop donating to his campaign). So keep donating to the causes you believe in, and fight even those politicians you support when you think they're wrong. That's what the American political process is all about. - Curtis Schweitzer

I'm not so disturbed nor so fickle. 1. Obama voted to amend the immunity out of the bill. They couldn't get the votes, which means they couldn't over-ride a promised veto either. 2. Other parts of the bill put in restraints that are important to have, and Bush had promised to sign it. 3: A parliamentary device is important - only those on the prevailing side can introduce reconsideration later, though I don't know how much of a factor that is here. In any case, this does not tell me that Obama is unprincipled. Stopping the executive-branch behavior seems preferable to suing Telcos, if we only get to choose one. - Dennis E. Hamilton from twhirl

@Dennis: +5. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Politics is not about perfection. Work to change your candidate's platform, not against your candidate. Seriously folks, you have friends, family and spouses who do things you don't agree with but we don't cut ourselves off from them or file for a divorce. - AJ Kohn

I don't see what the big deal is about telecom immunity. You can't ask a public company to say no to the NSA, it'd be a moral victory which they wouldn't be able to tell anyone about because of the secrecy involved and a potential hassle with the federal government. No upside, only downside. AT&T shouldn't have been asked to do it at all, which is what the FISA bill is about. - Nicholas Molnar

Here's the rub: Congress is totally freaking worthless and has been for a few decades now. It's a total fire sale and the highest bidder runs the country for awhile. If you hate Bush, then you haven't been paying attention to what the Congress has been doing for the past 20+ years (R's and D's, doesn't matter). Anyone who thinks that voting a senator into the White House will solve anything is fooling themselves. They're the ones responsible for the sorry state of things! Throw the bums out! - Chad Myers

Just a comment on the "even Hillary voted against it" thing. Clinton is no longer running for president. I seriously doubt she would have voted against the bill if she was the candidate. - Didi Chanoch

Maybe he's just another triangulating Slick Willie. But he's quite correct. The Left will vote for him anyway. And I'll take a Slick Willie over the neocons any day. Sigh. - Bob Morris (polizeros)

Well said Mr. Winer - I still can believe Sullivan's altogether lazie-fair attitude towards all of this. Surprising to say the least. - Will DeLuca

Good comments above. One point that was missed was that you need to differentiate between conservatives (think Goldwater) and neoconservatives (think GW Bush). - Ontario Emperor from fftogo

Ontario Emperor: neoconservatives are anti-conservative, anti-liberal, anti-libertarian and anti-American (thus the assault on the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights). They are a strange mix of Trotskyism and Judeo-Christian fascism and have glommed on to the conservative movement and turned it upside down and inside out. They are operating out of the 20th century authoritarian/totalitarian tradition. - Sean McBride

Ontario Emperor & Sean McBride: both great comments. It's sad that this distinction isn't made more publicly. - Zach Underwood

It's sad to see any politician or elected official sell our freedoms for any reason. It especially hurts when you see someone, like Obama, profess change and professing to being of the people, "change" his message. - Dennis Hays

With one exception, the FISA compromise does what Democrats wanted, and what most people thought the law was and should be. Telecom immunity was a tough sell, and it seems pretty understandable the Obama ultimately was not willing to kill the bill for it. I thought his explanation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barack-... captured the issues fairly well. - Kevin Miller

But there's a larger issue. It's hard for me to reconcile the Dave Winer who wrote this: http://www.scripting.com/davenet... with the one who wrote the post here. Politicians make shitty software, too, and it's equally as immature to ascribe evil purposes to Obama as to those who write software with bugs in it. Taken in full, Obama is the most promising politician in a generation, and this is a moment when we need every bit of political skill he can bring to the table. - Kevin Miller

Dave, I agree with you about FISA. It feels like the wrong decision by Obama. It also feels wrong that you would stop $$ support based on the FISA decsion. Assuming $$ is important to Obama's campaign your decision makes it more likely that McCain is elected. Regardless of the FISA vote, is that what you want? - Linc Holland

Linc and Kevin: Obama's base is sending him a powerful message: if you deviate too much from the positions you claimed to hold before being nominated, if you morph into a Joseph Lieberman clone, we will pull the rug out from under you so fast that it will make your head spin. Isn't that a message that Obama needs to hear loud and clear? - Sean McBride

Sean: I agree that that's a good message to send. But do you really see Obama morphing into a Joe Lieberman clone? I don't think that's what's going on here. He accepted a compromise that many of us wouldn't have. Maybe I wouldn't have, either. But once the House passed this new compromise, it was either going to be this bill or nothing, and I can understand that decision. - Kevin Miller

Kevin - I am still holding out hope that Obama will remain true to most of the policy positions he espoused this last spring. I don't think it does any harm to remind him and his top advisers that his base is paying very close attention to these matters. (And there is no conceivable way that I could vote for John McCain.) - Sean McBride

If you read Obama's policy statements from before he won the primaries you'll see he hasn't really changed his position at all. He was always further to the right than Hillary Clinton on issues such as energy, climate change, universal health care. - Paul Guinnessy