1115.org

Barack Obama has been the subject of some unfair criticism over the promise he made last fall, when campaign spokesman Bill Burton offered this crystal-clear statement:

To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

People have accused him of going back on his word, because now that retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies is close to being passed into law, Obama has offered only a tepid statement about waging some sort of half-hearted fight that he doesn’t even bother to try to sound confident of winning.

Being disappointed by Obama’s stand is one thing. Both Matt and I are deeply disappointed, even disgusted.

But has he really failed to live up to his word? All they said was Barack will support a filibuster. No mention of leading any charge, was there? (That’s change you can believe in right there, isn’t it, a new kind of politics? The leader who leads by following?)

So now Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold have stepped to the front, since Obama is too busy looking for someone else to take the lead, and Hillary is too busy worrying about her campaign debt and her bruised feelings, and Harry Reid has pretty much already given up the fight (”It appears, with the action that the House has taken, that, probably, we can’t take (immunity) out of the bill.”). Dodd and Feingold have announced their intention to fight the retroactive immunity provision tooth and nail, including by means of a filibuster:

In a last-ditch attempt to fix a surveillance bill critics say would essentially legalize President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program, Sens. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) have promised to filibuster the bill as long as it offers telecommunications companies retroactive immunity.

“This is a deeply flawed bill, which does nothing more than offer retroactive immunity by another name. We strongly urge our colleagues to reject this so-called ‘compromise’ legislation and oppose any efforts to consider this bill in its current form. We will oppose efforts to end debate on this bill as long as it provides retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that may have participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program, and as long as it fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans,” the senators said in a joint statement Tuesday.
[…]
A Dodd-led filibuster in February attracted just 29 supporters, short of the 41 necessary to keep a bill from coming to a vote. Speaking in Washington Monday, Feingold was pessimistic about their chances this time around.

Reid has already found it politic to support Dodd and Feingold; “he will cosponsor the amendment offered by Senators Dodd and Feingold to strip out the immunity provision, and support their efforts to strip immunity on the floor”. But clearly they need more support. Will they get any from Obama?