Guess what? Obama has been driving towards the center. Read his own website. He tosses out some nice speeches on there too, but I happen to be well read and I'm not blinded by my (once) favorable opinion of Obama.

Here's the thing; Obama should know better, but he changed his position anyway. Then, when a massive number of supporters asked him to keep his pledge, he refused. Frankly, I've read the bill itself and I'm not impressed. I could live with it if it did not have telecomm immunity in it, but its not worth having if it does.

See, the Fourth Amendment, along with all the others, is kind of a sore point with me. A Deal Breaker, you could say.

He COULD keep his pledge and still vote for the bill, however he has had a sudden failure of leadership in anouncing his support of the bill without talking about removing telecomm immmunity from it. Democratic Senators will see that and follow his lead, making it difficult for him to keep that pledge. He's shot himself in the foot, if he cared about that pledge at all.

The other thing is, Obama has a large lead over McCain that could keep growing, instead his lead has froze and McCain is gaining on him. Any intelligent person might look at that and get a clue, but apparently his advisors are not any such thing and he's listening to them rather than doing a little research himself. Obama had his lead when he stayed strong on issues like Iraq, FISA, Energy, Iran, and so on. Clinton was not at all strong on these things and she lost. Strong evidence for him that he either doesn't see or ignores.

All of this leads me to find him guilty of being just another politician until I see otherwise, and its not hard to change my mind in favor of him. He still has to keep telecomm immunity out of that bill before I return to wholeheartedly supporting him. Thats really all I ask, and Obama has the skill, influence, and intelligence to do that. Which makes it even more sad and pathetic if he does not.

Cenk is right in going after Obama for it. If you don't call them on their bullshit, they'll think that they got away with it.

See, he could have gone to the center on things that weren't central to his campaign, like Iraq and his telecomm immunity pledge. His opposing of the Supreme Courts decision on not excuting child rapists was fine. His support of faith based initiatives was fine. Supporting the Destruction of the Fourth Amendment is NEVER fine. He could have gone in so many other reasonable directions, but he didn't and so he pays the price.

So chill your shit out and let Cenk do his job.