With Dems Like These . . .

What's a little something like the Fourth Amendment to get in the way of some hare-brained political strategery? In one of the most depressing episodes since the Dems gained control of Congress in 2006 (and that's saying something), the Senate today overwhelmingly approved a revised FISA wiretapping statute.

How they managed to give up such a big victory to a President with approval ratings below freezing - and after his program has been repeatedly found to violate the Constitution in the courts - I'll never know. Throw in immunity from civil liability to the telecommunication companies that answered the administration's warrantless request for records. I've already given WV's junior senator hell about his role in this debacle. What's particularly depressing is our Presidential nominee's performance:

The issue put Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in a particularly precarious spot. After long opposing the idea of immunity for the phone companies in the wiretapping operation, he voted for the plan on Wednesday. His reversal last month angered many of his most ardent supporters, who organized an unsuccessful drive to get him to reverse his position once again. And it came to symbolize what civil liberties advocates saw as “capitulation” by Democratic leaders to political pressure from the White House in an election year.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who was Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted against the bill.

But, then again, I suppose he just couldn't resist arguments like this:

Senator Christopher S. Bond, the Missouri Republican who is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there was nothing to fear in the bill 'unless you have Al Qaeda on your speed dial.'

Obama's reversal means that, at least in the near term, there won't be any real hope of rolling back the executive power grabs that have marked Duhbya's terms (McCain wasn't present to vote, but supported the bill). Which is only the latest in a string of troubling moments from Obama. Looks like another year of voting for the lesser of two evils.

For more on the FISA bill, why it's awful, and what's next, check out Glenn Greenwald's work over at Salon.

UPDATE: From Greenwald's latest post:

As [law prof Jonathan]Turley says, and as I've written many times over the last two weeks, what is most appalling here beyond the bill itself are the pure falsehoods being spewed to the public about what Congress is doing -- and those falsehoods are largely being spewed not by Republicans. Republicans are gleefully admitting, even boasting, that this bill gives them everything Bush and Cheney wanted and more, and includes only minor changes from the Rockefeller/Cheney Senate bill passed last February (which Obama, seeking the Democratic Party nomination, made a point of opposing).

Rather, the insultingly false claims about this bill -- it brings the FISA court back into eavesdropping! it actually improves civil liberties! Obama will now go after the telecoms criminally! Government spying and lawbreaking isn't really that important anyway! -- are being disseminated by the Democratic Congressional leadership and, most of all, by those desperate to glorify Barack Obama and justify anything and everything he does. Many of these are the same people who spent the last five years screaming that Bush was shredding the Constitution, that spying on Americans was profoundly dangerous, that the political establishment did nothing about Bush's lawbreaking.

It's been quite disturbing to watch them turn on a dime -- completely reverse everything they claimed to believe -- the minute Obama issued his statement saying that he would support this bill.

Indeed.