Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Why would Obama vote yes on the FISA bill?

As we all know, Sen. Obama fought to strip the FISA bill of telecom immunity, but, failing that, he supported the final bill. Why did he do it? Most of the framing I'm seeing of this decision is that he's thinking of November. He doesn't want to be portrayed as soft on terror in the general election, so he voted for the least bad bill he thought he could get.

That certainly may be some of it, but there's possibly another calculation in there, as well, and I haven't seen much written about it. Obama may be thinking past November. That is, he expects to be president this time next year. He's thinking less like a senator and more like a president at this point. The FISA bill is an expansion of executive power. What president would vote no on that?

Just thinking....

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