NEW YORK – The July 4 fireworks here last night were a blast, even in the rain. The photos I took, looking from Brooklyn toward the East River, all ended up being so out of focus that I can't post them. Dang. But the scene was pretty much what you see in the 2007 AP photo above. (That's the Empire State Building with the blue-lit spire.) It will be a far better day when we're staging pyrotechnic celebrations for something much more like democracy, but right now even what a friend of mine calls our current "jingoistic, imperialist crapola holiday" can't take the fun out of a blazing canopy of fireworks over the Manhattan skyline.
Meanwhile, a firestorm is brewing in New York and elsewhere among some progressive Obama supporters over his latest and most alarming slide toward the "center" (read: right), that being Obama's recent reversal to support legal immunity for phone companies who compromise customer privacy at the behest of government so-called "anti-terror" requests for personal data.
You'll recall that Verizon and others took heavy public heat two years ago for caving to behind-the-scenes Bush Administration demands for large amounts of customer information, as clear a case of unconstitutional corporate cowardice as you'll ever see. Supporting legal immunity for such practices -- in effect saying "even when government crosses the line and violates the constitutional rights of innocents it's excusable for the sake of the War On Terror" -- was something Obama opposed until, suddenly, now facing a campaign against a Republican, he flipped and supported it. A roar of protest rose up on the left, and Democrats.com has launched a campaign for Obama supporters to place their contributions in escrow until the candidate "lives up to his promise to deliver 'change we can believe in.'"
I don't like it, this ever-squishier, ever-less-principled Obama we're getting. It's the part of his persona I mistrust the most: the part of him (and his campaign) that does not seem to understand the difference between principled compromise and expedient pandering. It is also a recipe for disaffection in the Democratic base that, if it continues, could affect voter turnout and aid McCain. This kind of weather-vane political twirling helped to beat Kerry, it beat Hillary Clinton, and it could beat Obama. One friend of mine suggests that Obama's plan is to make all the concessions he needs to get elected, and to then rear up and implement his intended progressive agenda once he's in office. I don't buy it. I have yet to see a presidential contender sell his or her principles on the campaign trail and then buy them back in the White House.
I'd say it's time for progressives to start emailing, speaking up, picketing, and otherwise making noise that might help to save Obama from himself. One way is to keep your money in your pocket and to pass his campaign a note saying he'll get your cash when he keeps his promises.
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