This and That

A few links to get us set for the big patriotic holiday weekend. Christy at firedoglake has a video of Russ Feingold quickly summarizing the FISA situation from his back yard back in Wisconsin. He makes a suggestion that sounds vaguely familiar:

I tease some of my colleagues, I say, "we can celebrate the Constitution on July 4th, and maybe when you come back you'll decide not to tear it up."

Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald responds to the Obama campaign's obfuscations about how thoroughly the candidate has changed his opinion on the FISA bill, going back to some actual statements Obama made against Bush's attempts to expand presidential surveillance during the primaries. Of course, there's always the argument that he's only doing what he has to, moving to the middle to win those fickle independents. Ian Welch, also at firedoglake, takes a look at why that trick never works, taking special note of Democratic presidential candidates who started out respected and ended up punchlines (you know you can think of a handful of examples yourself). This is a strategy McCain and the Republicans will definitely employ before we're all done, particularly now that he's installed a Rove disciple to oversee the details of his campaign. The reorganization must've been a bloody one if McCain had to be out of the country when it went down.

On the up side, it seems like the Wes Clark flap has blown over. He didn't come out of it unscathed, but he survived to fight another day. What happened to him is only a small example of what the Republicans no doubt have in store for Obama and his allies.