Have y’all been following the FISA thing at all? It’s some interesting stuff. The backstory is that the Bush administration, in a typically executive power is ultimate power move, insisted that the telecom companies could- and, indeed, must, if they were to be patriots- allow them to spy on American citizens without oversight or warrants. The FISA thing, then, is a series of negotiations over a bill that would retroactively make it legal for the telecoms and the administration to have done that. It’s a law without precedent, and that wouldn’t set one, either- it pretty much just says that thing that they did is legal, but it’s not legal to do again. Which is, like, totally convincing- because if one President and administration is able to get away with it with but a stern wag of the finger, every future President will know that, um, Congress means business. Or something. Opponents of the bill would like to see this investigated, and would not like to see the telecoms granted immunity for spying on their customers without warrants.

After months of negotiations, it passed in the House today. The Senate votes on it soon.

I know the big question is what does this have to do with obama, and there’s an awesome answer to that. If Obama, as leader of the party, pushes against the bill (as opposed to maybe tepidly voting against it, but mostly sitting on the sidelines), then he actually may be who we’ve wanted him to be. They need 40 Senators to filibuster the bill. If Obama comes down hard against it, odds are awfully good they’ll get ‘em. If he doesn’t, then not so good. It’s an interesting time, and it’ll say an awful lot about the guy’s character and his leadership. He’s previously come out against it, so it’s not something that he disagrees with in principle- it’s just a matter of seeing how he leads, and what sort of politically ambiguous decisions he might make as a leader. If he doesn’t fight the bill, then there’ll be some validation for those who say he’s just another politician (he is, but the extent to which that’s true will be clarified by this). If he does fight it, then there’s something interesting going on.

We’ll see what happens. I suspect, though, that he’s gonna keep quiet.