I suspect most of us aren't so childish that we would bite off our nose to spite our face.

Forget childish, I'm not nearly flexible enough to bite off my nose to spite my face.

It most definitely was snark. I should have labeled it as such...

I suspect that most of Barack's voters understand the difference between political necessity in the current climate vice a character flaw.

And that is your crucial mistake.

Let's leave aside the fact that your sentence didn't describe the choice between "political necessity" and whateverinhelltheotherchoicewassupposedtobe. I have made more than my share of errors in writing up blog comments. I would be curious to see exactly what you think the other "choice" is. I suspect it would be something tendentious like "ideological purity."

The crucial mistake is that you have nowhere substantiated -- and I dispute -- that this is a "political necessity." Guess what -- Obama and the rest of the Dems are going to be painted as Soft On Terror no matter what they do. "But we/I voted to destroy your liberties in order to save you from the Terrorists" just isn't going to wash with those who already think that we need a dictatorship to save us from Terror. All this does is (accurately) paint D's as weak-kneed in the face of opposition, and/or just as corrupt as the GOP. That's political suicide, not political necessity.

FISA required EXACTLY ONE FIX: making explicit that no warrant was required for intecepting foreign-to-foreign communications that happen to be routed through US circuits or computers. All the rest is a giveaway to the National Surveillance State and the enabling telecom corporations.

Moreover, the tone and content of your post suggests that this particular issue is not worth taking a stand on. May I suggest that if this issue isn't worth it, then virtually nothing is.

To understand just how truly reprehensible this legislation is I'm sorry, but you are going to have to do a bit of reading:

Glenn Greenwald: George Bush's latest powers, courtesy of the Democratic Congress describes some of the most disgusting provisions of this bill.

Glenn Greenwald: What Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Fred Hiatt mean by "bipartisanship" give the latest political and procedural updates, including Obama's weaselly statement.

I quote here from the latter post:

UPDATE VIII: Nobody should be fooled by Obama's vow to work to remove telecom amnesty from this bill. Harry Reid is already acknowledging that this "effort" is likely to fail and is just pure political theater: Reid said: "Probably we can't take that out of the bill, but I'm going to try." The article continued: "Reid said the vote would allow those opposed to the liability protection to 'express their views.'"

We should continue to demand that amnesty is removed from the bill -- and fight it to the bitter end -- but this whole separate vote they'll have in the Senate on whether to remove amnesty is principally designed to enable Obama, once he votes to enact this bill, to say: "Well, I tried to get immunity out, and when I couldn't, I decided to support the compromise." It's almost certainly the case that Hoyer secured Obama's support for the bill before unveiling it.

Either way, Obama -- if amnesty isn't removed -- is going to vote for warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty, and his statement today all but sealed the fate of this bill. There is no point in sugarcoating that, though we ought to continue to fight its enactment with a focus on removing amnesty in the Senate. Greg Sargent makes several good points about Obama's statement.

So you can forget about ever knowing what crimes the Bush Administration committed in ransacking your private communications, with the aid of some of the wealthiest corporations in the world.

Greenwald already noted last December that the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) together with UK-based Privacy International, in their yearly report on privacy protections worldwide, had already ranked the US as an "endemic surveillance society," the worst possible rating that can be given. It puts us in the company of such democratic giants as China, Russia, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.

A quote from the Key Findings of that report:

In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world. In terms of overall privacy protection the United States has performed very poorly, being out-ranked by both India and the Philippines and falling into the "black" category, denoting endemic surveillance.

Greenwald also quotes extensively from US State Department reports on Russia in 2001 and 2006 that condemn the very violations that have been going on in the US for the last seven-plus years, and that are sanctified, ratified, and whitewashed in this abomination of a bill. I won't post the quotes here as this comment already is overlong, but you can read them in Greenwald's June 17 post The Company We Keep. That same post also notes that Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe cited the United States as an example in passing his own draconian surveillance legislation.

That's only the surface, Comrade. Greenwald has lots of other information on this abomination, as do Jane Hamsher and Christy Hardin Smith at Firedoglake.

So that's what you're willing to compromise in the name of "political necessity" in the purported "current climate." A bill that ratifies our status as an Endemic Surveillance Society along with Russia, China, Singapore, Malaysia, and Zimbabwe.

Hope your papers are in order, Comrade.