Barack Obama helps George Bush Destroy the Fourth Amendment

In one of the most ignominious moments in recent Congressional history, the Senate voted to support the FISA "compromise" legislation which both immunizes law-breaking telecommunications companies from prosecution, but also authorizes retroactively the warrantless spying the Bush Administration has engaged in since at least 2003. For the first time in history, the government, and it's complicit partners in business, will be able to legally spy on communications from outside the country, without any sort of oversight. The FISA court had been conducting said oversight since the inception of the act in 1979, to no reported problems. It's not as if this court had been obstructionist, as some on the right and in the media might lead one to believe. In fact, the court turned down one warrant submission in the last 29 years.

More importantly, as I have mentioned repeatedly in this space, this bill is the antithesis of a "compromise", and in actuality, the Republicans achieved more than even their most delusional members thought possible with this bill.

How did this miraculous bill materialize? At the behest of Tom DeLay in the house and Bill "Terri Schiavo could be cognizant" Frist? With some arcane Senate procedural matter?

No. It was the Democratic led Congress hat permitted this brazenly illegal legislation to codify into our laws. At the forefront of lobbying for this blemish to our nation's Constitution, was Barack Obama. Obama, even after plainly stating he would oppose a bill that granted immunity, and would filibuster the bill if it came to the floor of the Senate, served as a shepherd to passage for this legislation. In fact, Obama both voted for the bill, and in a shocking display of callous political calculation, went against his word, and did not support a filibuster.

After weeks of a crescendo of building towards "centrism", Obama has now thoroughly solidified that notion when he ignored both Constitutional provisions, and rejected statements he made mere months ago, and voted for this turgid, patently illegal piece of legislation.

Does this sound like the sort of centrism that Obama voters envisioned when they voted for him during the primary season that he won by a razor thin margin? (Note: Obama's narrowly vanquished foe, Hillary Clinton, supported our ingrained Constitutional protections and voted against the bill.) Is this the sort of leadership that the Democratic caucus believed that Barack Obama would bring to the Oval Office? A leadership, which at least today, aligns him identically with the Bush Administration.

Yes, I know that Democrats want to win after 8 years of absence in the White House. However, Barack Obama proved today that he, in the interest of political calculation, will blatantly ignore his own constituents wishes. Given that, what would the difference between Barack Obama and John McCain on this issue?

You guessed it, there's isn't one.

Given that, there is no virtue in "winning" if Barack Obama conforms to the nefarious notion that he should "move to the center", and thereby participate in eviscerating our Constitution.