“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Obama’s comments on faith-based programs would’ve gone mostly under the radar without his betrayal of that amendment, methinks. Liberals are right to be outraged. The fact remains, however, that in the end, no one in their right mind is going to vote for a disaster like McCain.

How many people in this country are still in their right minds is definitely debatible. ;-)

But Ames, my darling, my joy, you wouldn’t think so highly of me if you’d known the cursing that went on in this house when Obama voted yes on FISA. However, I am a somewhat sane person, and when I put this man on one side of the scale and McCain on the other, it’s manifestly clear who’s the bigger idiot. McCain broke my Idiot-o-Meter.

Obama it is!

I fully trust he’ll redeem himself on FISA one day, as long as we keep applying the good sharp smack to the occasional buttock. And that’s what a lot of people don’t seem to get: we liberals can indeed fully support someone whom we’ve got turned over a knee on an issue. It’s a single bloody issue. No candidate is going to be 100% perfect – especially not one who has to pander to all of the crazy, unthinking, knee-jerk voters in this country to get a shot at sitting in the Daddy chair.

Problem with that is, a quick snoop around the national polls shows that maybe running for the center is a bad idea in this election. Digby and Greenwald both have had some interesting things to say about this, and I suppose it’s time for me to write up a post about it all.

I hope Ames will still love me the morning after, because I surely love him. ;-)

@Martin: Thank you for the spit-take. Since when is a vote to eviscerate the Fourth Amendment and annihilate a considerable chunk of our civil liberties “some unimportant remark that panders to that demographic?” Harf?

*ahem*

Obama’s primary job in the next few months is emphatically *not* to secure the liberal/Democrat vote, because he already has it. Neither is it to secure the hard-right vote, because that’s basically impossible. The job of Obama – and McCain – is to secure the centrists. Hillary would be doing exactly the same if she was in Obama’s position – you’d be nuts to think otherwise.

And this is what I don’t understand. As Liberals, you must understand that unless Obama can swing moderates to his site, you have fuck all chance of winning the election. So why the hell are you all bitching everytime he makes some unimportant remark that panders to that demographic?

Right now, Obama is your candidate. Back him, unless you want McCain to win.

Of course, we could just blame the gays – ignoring the overwhelming percentage of healthy gay family units – and call it a day :-)

I suspect that there are certain issues like the economy, foreign policy and national security that Obama is going to prove to be a Centrist on.

I think he will actually prove to be socially conservative on other issues like gay marriage and cleaning up the black community.

Where I’m scared of the guy is with his plans for a massive investment in social programs and with the only way of funding these being tax hikes. THAT is really the most dangerous aspect of liberalism because these programs are passed bit by bit until a year later we realize they just created $10 billion in new entitlements. Pelosi and Reid are going to be willing allies in that effort.