Our First Reaction to FISA

By Baxter

We cats — at least at this very early moment — are filing today's FISA Senate vote under the heading of, "Can We Just Do This Now and Fix It Later?"

Fact: We hate today's FISA bill. We hate that George W. Bush is happy about it.

Fact: We are in an election year — one in which even the weakened Republican Party is ready to jump all over Senator Obama with that old bugaboo, "You're Soft On Terrorism!" To us, the clearest evidence of this political reality is that while Senator Obama voted for the FISA bill, Senator Clinton — who no longer is running for President — felt comfortable enough to vote against it.

Fact: You can't do merde — as our friends in Montreal would call it — if you don't WIN.

Fact: Senator Obama must win in November.

Can we possibly survive until then? We realize this probably sounds craven and opportunistic to Glenn Greenwald, Jonathan Turley and our friends on The Left. And they are our friends. But this is the way things are. We have 50 seats in the Senate, and a cranky asshole named Lieberman who votes with our caucus but who also is slated to speak at the Republican Convention. We have a Democratic nominee who opposed the Iraq War from the start and whom the Republicans are going to try to brand as "elitist," "non-military" and "out of touch."

Can we please fix this later — when Senator Obama is in the White House, we have 57 seats in the Senate, and around 250 seats in the House?