Incredible

By Daniel Larison • July 8, 2008, 1:18 PM

In Obamaworld, apparently wrecking the Fourth Amendment is roughly equivalent to ridiculing some obscure rapper. The only thing more depressing than the conceit that supporting unconstitutional measures is a way to “signal” to swing voters that you are not a radical loon bent on “ideological purity,” which is basically to make defending the Constitution a position held only by radicals and extremists, is the dishonest representation of support for the compromise legislation as being a pro-civil liberties position. Ellsberg wrote at Antiwar’s blog the other day:

What the administration seeks, and this bill provides, is permanent warrantless surveillance.

Greenwald has more, and here is his response to Obama’s statement on the FISA bill.

Update: John Nichols traces the history of Obama’s position on the FISA bill. Inasmuch as his opposition to this bill powered him to victory in Wisconsin, which was, as most of us acknowledged at the time, the beginning of the end for Clinton, he owes his nomination to the stand that he has now repudiated.

19 Responses to Incredible

conradg says:

July 8, 2008 at 3:08 pm

However you want to put it, Obama didn’t create the political world in which concern for civil liberties is considered anathema to serious political discussion. Conservatives did. They did this systematically, over many decades, to the degree that coming out in favor of civil liberties is essentially worse than admitting one is a gay terrorist abortionist. If you want to ridicule someone over this situation, I suggest you begin ridiculing your fellow conservatives, not liberals like Obama who cannot get elected without kowtowing to these political realities. What I hear in every one of your rants is the defensive anxieties of someone who hopes no one will notice that it’s their side of the aisle who is responsible for this situation, and yet wants us all to believe that it’s Obama’s fault, and a sign of his weakenesses, rather than their own.
Daniel Larison says:

July 8, 2008 at 3:18 pm

As you may have noticed or guessed, I have had more than a few hostile things to say about mainstream conservatism and the GOP’s contempt for the Constitution over the last three and half years of blogging. As a Ron Paul supporter, I am keenly aware of and have made a point of noting the collaboration of the GOP in this administration’s many illegal acts. I have already done more than my part in taking these people to task, and I take it as a given that they are profoundly wrong on this question. Obama claimed to oppose the measure when it was convenient and expedient for him to do so, and now he doesn’t. The “political world” created by Bushism didn’t seem to intimidate him that much four months ago, but that was when he needed progressives to trust him. If Obama hasn’t got the courage of his convictions, that isn’t anyone’s fault but his own. The people who want to trample on civil liberties are not on my “side,” whatever they may call themselves. I try to be on the side of the Constitution. Obama has chosen to be on the other side on this question. That’s his choice and maybe it’s politically clever, but please stop making excuses for him.
DaveA says:

July 8, 2008 at 7:42 pm

Yeah. What Daniel said. In a later post you address the “illness of optimism.” Maybe the “illness of winning at all costs” would be a better topic?
conradg says:

July 8, 2008 at 10:01 pm

Yes, I’m aware you are a Ron Paul supporter, and that Ron Paul would never make any compromises on this issue, because of course he never had a chance in hell of becoming the GOP candidate, much less elected President. Nothing he did in any way advanced the cause of protecting the 4th Amendment from government abuse, and nothing you are doing now is doing that either. Why? Because only politiicans who are willing to compromise are able to get elected and actually protect anything at all.

You are fully and completely aware that regardless of how Obama voted on FISA, it was going to pass, so let’s not pretend you are actually suggesting that if he had voted differently, it would have protected the 4th Amendment in the least. It’s purely an issue of “principle” to you and others right now, not actual protection. In that regard, Obama is merely bowing to the realities that have been created by Republicans over the last few decades that have made it impossible for many Democrats to get elected without voting in support of measures like this. They didn’t create that situation, and they aren’t going to change it if everyone blames them for the passage of these measures.Obama has made it clear that he will prosecute members of the former administration who broke the law, but obviously he cannot do anything about it now. I don’t doubt Obama’s courage, and I don’t doubt his political intelligence. I do doubt yours. If you really wanted to protect the 4th Amendment, you would be launching a campaign against the Republicans on this issue, and John McCain, rather than playing silly games about Obama’s bowing to the pressures of campaigning. John McCain fully and completely supports FISA, with no reservations, but this doesn’t seem to arouse your ire. Instead, you simply become more and more obsessed with Obama’s lack of purity and principle, as if that were more important than McCain’s total devotion to the national security state. You are more concerned with whether Obama represents a genuinely “different” kind of politiican, than who is actually responsible for this bill, and this overall situation, and who is most likely to protect the 4th amendment and revise FISA and prosecute government lawbreakers once elected. It’s simple righteous posturing with no particular purpose, or if there is a purpose, it is one that actually runs counter to any real effort to protect the Constitution.

As for the notion of “winning at all costs”, what costs has Obama actually incurred here, except the ire of the self-righteous purists? Obama has not actually done anything that in any way harms the Constitution, he’s merely protected himself from baseless charges in the offing that he is soft on terrorism, that he doesn’t appreciate the severity of the threat, etc.That seems like a pretty minor cost to incur in the process of winning an election after which he can do all kinds of things to fix FISA and prosecute government criminality.If he loses the claim to being the Messiah, all the better.
DaveA says:

July 9, 2008 at 9:17 am

“As for the notion of â€œwinning at all costsâ€, what costs has Obama actually incurred here, except the ire of the self-righteous purists?”

It isn’t a matter of benefits or damages accrued, but rather the age-old issue of sacrificing basic principles to get into power. Watching election after election after election has taught me that once principles get thrown overboard, they are rarely rescued later. There’s no benefit in it. If Obama fudges on issues like FISA and Iraq now, and as a result becomes more appealing to the center and gets elected, why reverse course? The disgruntled liberals just demonstrated they’ll vote for him anyhow, why risk losing the newly attracted independents?

I simply don’t share the notion that Obama’s shifts are all just a front to get elected and afterwards some “real” Obama will emerge (or re-emerge). The shifts are about getting elected, all right, but they aren’t a front.
Adam01 says:

July 9, 2008 at 10:32 am

” Obama has not actually done anything that in any way harms the Constitution ”

The probably next POTUS indicating that he views the 4th amendment as an antiquated dead-letter? In what alternate bizarro-world is that not positive harm to the Constitution?
Daniel Larison says:

July 9, 2008 at 11:09 am

“Obama has not actually done anything that in any way harms the Constitution.”

That’s because he hasn’t voted on this bill yet. Then again, he did vote to reauthorise the PATRIOT Act, which was already damaging enough. He did the same dance on that bill–sighing that it wasn’t perfect, but, gosh, we have to fight terrorism by trampling on constitutional protections. If he votes for this bill, that will be even worse.

It’s sad how refusing to undermine the Constitution is supposedly evidence of some unrealistic purism. That attitude is as much responsible for where we are today as the political culture created by “security state” conservatives (who are simply imitating Wilson and FDR in their abuses).

Obviously, he has damaged his credibility with many core supporters and has undermined an essential part of his candidacy. The usual assmption is that people will still line up and vote for him come November, but one of the things he has been counting on is the “enthusiasm gap” and a stronger turnout than the GOP. This works against that. As a purely cynical maneuver, it may not be very smart. As Greenwald’s latest post explains, however, people in his campaign and the candidate actually seem to believe that the bill is a good one–that is going to hurt Obama’s claim to judgement.

The Republicans, by the way, are in the minority, in case you haven’t noticed. It is the gutless Democratic leadership that is doing this, and so it seems appropriate that the new leader of their party should be the focus of the criticism. I would be glad to attack Pelosi and Hoyer, too, but that’s so easy–no one would defend them, and they have already made their blunder. Until the Senate votes, drawing attention to this issue by relating it to the presidential election is a useful way to bring before the public.
Daniel Larison says:

July 9, 2008 at 11:17 am

There is also something particularly precious about making excuses for someone who has *joined* with security state “conservatives” to defend him from criticisms from some of the only conservatives who think that fundamental civil liberties should not be compromised in the name of antiterrorism. This is the political equivalent of “the devil made him do it,” as if the GOP is today so dominant that Obama could not challenge the status quo. Oh, but that’s right, he never challenges the status quo when he fears some risk.
Adam01 says:

July 9, 2008 at 1:18 pm

conradg,

Quick question for you: I think any reasonable observer would have to say that this is the GOP’s lowest point, by any measure, since Watergate at the least. If in this environment Obama cannot summon up the courage of his convictions, on what other issues will he tuck tail and run in 4 or 8 years?
JBraunstein says:

July 9, 2008 at 1:46 pm

Conradg has a point, but only if one makes certain assumptions about what constitutes “pragmatism” as opposed to “purity” (pragmatism seeming to mean a childlike yearning for and deferrence to all-powerful authoritarian protectorate) as well as taking for granted that the “better safe than sorry” political culture in which defense of civil liberties is electorally hazardous, is actually as powerful as the beltway supposes.

It assumes that Obama is absolutely powerless to change the narrative and the frame of reference in which we talk about the importance of civil liberties. Larison, myself and others are simply suggesting that he may have this power; he has the rhetorical talent, and politcal conditions are rarely this hospitible to such a shift.

Obama’s course of action suggests one of two things then–he is either resigned to the assumption that he cannot change people’s views on civil liberties to a more constitutional position–or he actually doesn’t care much about civil liberties. Weak, or malevolent–take your pick.
conradg says:

July 10, 2008 at 6:29 pm

Adam01,

The post-Watergate political advantage was greatly exagerrated at the Presidential level. Carter won election by only 2 pts over Ford in 1976, and he ran as a conservative DLC centrist from the start. Dems are at a serious disadvantage at the Presidential level, have been since the 1960′s, and though that may change at some point, it hasn’t yet. I’ve said for some time that the Dem Presidential advantage at this point is no more than 4-5 pts., and that could be lost if Obama misteps. Daniel is simply unrealistic when he claims this should be a landslide Dem victory, and that this is the time to stand up for some constitutional principle. It’s not. Obama has to establish real national security credentials to make this kind of stand, which means he has to be elected President and do well on national security matters first. Then he will have the cred to change these things around. Anything before that would not only fail, but backfire against both him and the cause of civil liberties.

I don’t think Daniel yet understands how political change actually works. He thinks that it happens by guys like Ron Paul making principled stands and losing gloriously. Not. It happens by the slow establishment of credibility on issues that have been propagandized for decades, and changing the overall political environment such that those ideas become discredited. The Iraq war has already lost credibility for the Republicans, but the same has simply not occurred in relation to FISA, survelliance issues, and the fight against terrorism. Obama is behind by 19 pts against McCain on the issue of fighting terrorism, and he simply can’t afford to suffer any further on this issue, certainly not for a phantom stand on a bill that is going to pass anyway.

Also, the notion that the GOP is at some great low is greatly overexagerated. The Dems only have a majority in the Senate of 1, that one being Joe Lieberman, so it’s incredibly slight. In the house, no great majority, nothing to compare with what the Dems had even before Nixon’s fall. That should improve in the fall, but it’s a long way to go before the Dems reach the filibuster and veto-proof majorities they had in Nixon’s day.
Daniel Larison says:

July 10, 2008 at 6:39 pm

“he simply canâ€™t afford to suffer any further on this issue, certainly not for a phantom stand on a bill that is going to pass anyway.”

And why was it going to “pass anyway”? Because a huge part of the Democratic caucus caved in along with Obama. There was no chance of them having enough votes for cloture if the Democratic leadership had exercised any, well, leadership. They didn’t, and neither did Obama. There is never political change when there is no leadership to that end.

If I don’t understand how these things work, neither did Obama four months ago when he pledged to filibuster legislation exactly like the bill he voted for. As for gaining credibility, you do not increase your credibility on any issue by occupying diametically opposed positions on the same bill in the space of half a year. That is how you destroy whatever credibility you already had.
conradg says:

July 10, 2008 at 7:21 pm

JB,

Pragmatism to me means doing what is possible, and not fighting losing battles unless that can be turned to one’s advantage somehow. The idea that Obama has the power to turn this debate around is pure fantasy. He has a very fragile lead and no room to give on crucial issues of national security, which he is already behind on by 19 pts. McCain would turn an Obama stand against FISA into a very damaging campaign issue that would not die, and would play into his overall criticism of Obama as inexperienced, risky, and unprepared to be taken seriously on national security issues. Voters are not going to turn on Jack Bauer and deny him the right to listen in on terrorists phoning in from overseas. That’s how the issue stands in the popular mind right now, and Obama is not going to change that over the next few months. It will take years to undermine the right-wing propaganda which has made the current surveillance state possible, and FISA seemingly necessary.

Now, if you are saying that Obama is weak, you are correct. He is not in a position of strength, certainly not relative to this issue. He is from from being elected, and he has a very narrow lead. The time to fight this battle is when he is strong and able to overcome the propaganda machine that has been pounding away at the public for years. The fact that Obama can recognize these realities speaks well for him. Those who cannot recognize these realities, and assign the blame for them to the people who actually created this reality, are doing the cause fo civil liberty no favors. If anything, they are hurting the cause.
conradg says:

July 10, 2008 at 7:37 pm

Daniel,

You fail to ask the next question, which is why do Democrats feel they have to cave on this? Well, first, they only have a majority of one, that one being Joe lieberman. Plus, they have a number of red-state senators who simply can’t stand against issues of national security like this. So that alone guarantees passage.As for filibustering, that raises the issue to huge national attention, and you seem utterly oblivious to what is actually going on in this country in regards to civil liberties. The people have spoken, and in their mind it is Jack Bauer who is the real spokesman on this issue, and only weak-willed traitors who stand up for civil liberties. Decades of campaiging against the ACLU have taken their toll. So the fact is, the same red-state Dems who can’t vote against FISA also can’t vote against cloture, so it passes. The fact is, to take a real stand against FISA and other civil liberties issues will require decades long campaign that undermines the decades of propaganda put out by right-wing scare mongers on this issue.

Now, you are right that Obama should not have vowed to filibuster the telecom immunity issue. That was a miscalculation on his part. I’m not sure if he thought it wouldn’t make it into the bill, or if he simply made a gaffe. In any case, that reversal is a real one, and people have a right to feel that he let them down somewhat. On the other hand, the calculation he is making now is the right one under the circumstances, and if one is going to reverse one’s previous position, it’s best to do so when the reversal is the best course of action. A foolish consistency is not an admirable trait. I think it’s sad that this is, indeed, the best course of action, but Obama did not create this landscape, he is simply trying to navigate it as best he can to the best outcome he can realistically see is possible.

However, is position on FISA itself is not diametrically opposite to the position he took six months ago. He was always open to compromise on the bill itself. And frankly, I don’t see the real damage this bill does, not in the context of the realities of what is going on in the national surveillance state we already have in effect. At least it only applies to international communications, and it does have some decent if not foolproof safeguards and oversight. All of which can be modified much more easily if Obama is President. As it is, under current political conditions, this is the best we can expect. Things should be different in the years to come.
JBraunstein says:

July 11, 2008 at 12:53 am

Conradg has a keen political perspective, and he is largely correct on the strictly political dynamic of national security v. civil liberties as it now stands. So far as Obama opposes any national security/anti-terror legislation on GOP terms, he loses badly, as would any Democrat.

What I take issue with is the amazing cowardice of the Democrats, Obama among them, that compels them to grovel before the GOP’s authoritarian idiocy on security/defense issues in order to avoid appearing “weak”, when such submission itself is the very definition of weakness. It is entirely possible to articulate a tough agenda for national security while still leaving the rule of law and checks and balances intact (does anyone in the mainstream even defend these concepts anymore?).

As the adage goes, why should I trust the Dems to stand up to America’s enemies when they can’t even stand up to the GOP? What does the average schmo know from national security, besides what the Rs tell them, since the Ds have been incapable of offering a palatable, coherent alternative for the past 30 years?

The uproar over TSP is not over the breadth of surveillance deemed necessary–it is the unacceptable (by constitutional standards) lack of accountability and checks against abuses. Are you telling me that the American public is pro-unaccountability and pro-abuse?

Granted, most citizens can’t really imagine their own government being an actual threat to them (they arenâ€™t doing anything wrong!), but then again, I’d wager that most citizens would willingly consent to a nakedly despotic regime in perpetuity if they were convinced it was necessary to the maintenance of our way of life.

But we know this because we know when the masses are frightened they exhibit a child-like suggestibility and are very malleable to charismatic demagoguery. Case in point the “GWOT”–a macro meme devised by a literal handful of Machiavellis–the acceptance of which has since become a prerequisite for respectability and participation in Serious opinion circles. A small cabal of propagandists effectively committed this country to a perpetual hot war against an ambiguous, omnipresent enemy, justifying naked imperialism and executive dictatorship in principle.

At core, it is an insane proposition with predictably horrendous consequences for liberty and peace, and yet mentioning this self-evident fact in public is an act of reputation suicide. The implication is, if youâ€™re against the neo-Jacobin method of defending America, you want thousands of little American babies to get blown up.

Does that mean we should stand back and allow dangerous fools to mind-f*** the populous while secret liberals machinate their way into power, for fear that being honest, defending original liberal principles and telling the truth will torpedo our chances of success? Have you read Tolstoyâ€™s â€œLetter to Liberalsâ€? How can Obama change the system when he embodies the system?

What baffles me the most is your assumption that he really has a secret pro-liberty agenda which he will boldly reveal once he attains power. Even if this unlikely supposition were true, does power not corrupt? If pragmatism is the art of the possible, the expectation that the cooption of a power consolidating, coercive apparatus can achieve pro-liberty objectives by any method but obstruction and sabotage, is the height of unrealism. I have a feeling Obama will be quite the energetic executive.
conradg says:

July 11, 2008 at 11:59 am

JB,

That’s a good analysis, and I think you answer your own question quite well. The problem of course is that you hate the answer. I don’t think blaming Obama and the Dems is going to help. You are right that Dems are weak on this issue, and have not been able to mount a credible campaign that promotes civil liberties in the face of the disinterest among “the masses” for these issues. I don’t really know what the answer to this is, if there even is an answer. Part of the problem is that in many respects the whole FISA debate is a total joke. We already have all kinds of surveillance programs in place, such as Echelon, which are far more comprehensive than FISA and already intercept all electronic communications.from outside the country. The issue is who gets access to these communication intercepts outside of the NSA.

As for Obama, I don’t think he has some secret pro-liberty agenda. He’s openly made clear his views on the matter, but what he can actually do about it politically is another matter entirely. You are right that power corrupts, or more precisely, it redirects one’s energies to the possible rather than the ideal. The surveillance state is a government within the government, and its powers can’t be taken lightly. Presidents have a limited ability to fight it, and as long as the public remains essentially indifferent and even sympathetic to its cause, there is no electoral incentive to do anything serious about it, which is the real issue in a democracy. Leadership on this would be great, but leadership requires followers, and if there aren’t enough of them, it simply doesn’t work.

I in no way would suggest people opposed to this do nothing. But attacking Obama and the Dems is hugely counterproductive, and is really just a sign of imploding frustration at the inability to convince a wider audience that this is a worthy cause. I don’t see paleocons attacking the Republicans on this issue, or McCain, only Obama, which is silly in the extreme, considering who is actually responsible for this situation.
JBraunstein says:

July 11, 2008 at 2:24 pm

Conradg,

I think youâ€™re mostly right about the cynical political reality behind the Democratâ€™s behavior. If things are clearly electorally driven, there is no real political incentive for the Ds to do anything that can be construed as weak on defense, as there isnâ€™t a big enough constituency to warrant the stake. Its just very depressing that the GOP has been able to associate a complete disregard for oversight and civil protections with â€œtoughnessâ€ on national security, and that the Democrats could not develop a counter-argument to this (assuming they ever cared to).

However, I have my own theory on what could make civil liberties and the constitution a forefront issue in the American psyche. It involves provoking the government into overreach and exposure of abusive tendencies. It seems people can countenance autocracy if they trust the authorities to do the right thing, but this trust can quickly erode if they see gratuitous examples of the wrong things being done, and no one being held to account for it.

This unease could amplify into outrage if the victims of clear injustice at the hands of an unrepentant, condescending state are people who the general public identify with and sympathize with.

When blond-haired, all-American Stacy Jones is detained indefinitely without charges for attending a political rally, when Bob Johnson the family man and business owner are swept up in a Kafkaesque dragnet for being unwitting associates of â€œterrorâ€ suspects, who themselves are suspects for being associates with other suspects, when people are harassed and their privacy destroyed without explanation or with a brazenly bogus explanation, when all these things happen and everyone realizes there is no redress and we are totally at the mercy of our own government â€¦people will start to get concerned.

With clear demonstrations of how ordinary, wholesome Americanâ€™s liberties can be grossly violated by unaccountable, shadowy police power, even when/especially when they â€œhavenâ€™t done anything wrongâ€, our forsaken civil rights will suddenly gain a lot of stock.

The citizenry will stop identifying with the â€œlawâ€ and its enforcers, and start to see lawlessness for the immediate danger it is. The government has to be separated from the concept of societyâ€”a de-democratization of the civic creed–and be seen as two distinct phenomena in conflict, with the State inherently hostile to those things valuable to a free society (you know, the â€œradicalâ€ point of view of the founders). Getting average Joes to empathize with the victims of government overreach is the surest way to disrupt blind acquiescence to the national security bludgeon.

If you think about it, divorcing society from the state by repurposing peopleâ€™s civic allegiances is why the Civil Rights movement was so successful, and it used the above strategy of facilitating cognitive dissonance in a previously ambivalent citizenry. Opposition to Vietnam materialized similarly, when the government sabotaged itself by leveling a direct attack on its base of consent with compulsory servitude. They learned their lesson and weâ€™ll never have the draft again, as the demand for empire has proven to be very elastic.

So, until unconstitutional surveillance, search and seizure and imprisonment can garner the same attention and uproar as the disappearance of Natalie Holloway, you are right in your estimation that neither party will give a flying $%#@ about our founding principles until they lose an election on it.
conradg says:

July 11, 2008 at 4:29 pm

JB,

I agree with you that this issue won’t matter to most people until they start getting detained. But that’s precisely why the surveillance state people will never do that. They won’t have to. They’ll have far subtler ways of making themselves felt, and by then the technological intrusions on our privacy will be so commonplace, and most people will be so used to them, that hardly anyone will object. Big Brother is definitely coming, much more powerfully than Orwell described, but far less crude. People will be protected into a state of near-constant “detention”, rendering any actual detention unnecessary except in the most extreme cases. Fighting that requires a rejection of the very notion that the government is supposed to “protect us” in any but the most simple ways.
JBraunstein says:

July 11, 2008 at 8:36 pm

Conradg,

I think you’re totally correct about how technology will allow Big Brother to blend in with an already privacy-shredding hyper-networked world–but my point on provocation still stands. A technologically enhanced totalitarianism may be less brutish than Orwell’s vision, but no less subjugating, as you said. It’ll be interesting to see how methods of protest and civil disobedience will adapt.