When you start thinking about all of the Bush Administration's filthy piles of stinking Republican excrement, this FISA Fiasco will go down as one of the ugliest.  You've got the President breaking the law, then openly lying about breaking the law, then trying to bully the Legislative Branch into codifying it for him.  Never mind that the issue is even bigger than statutory law.  We're talking about a full fledged dump on the Constitution (Amendment IV, I believe?).

Don't look now but Mr. 28% is playing in the mud with his Republican buddies in the Congress again.  They gummed the Senate up enough to prevent passage of an extension of the current FISA legislation.

Why, I hear you ask?  So The Worst President in US History can use it in his State of the Union speech.  You know, the speech where he LIES??

Could this be what they call a "teachable moment"?

Well, Mr. Edwards, do I have a job for you!

Yeah.  Another crummy candidate diary.  Hey, they have a certain entertainment and therapeutic value, right?  I know some bemoan the "intra-partisanship," if you will.  And, if you won't well, that's another diary.  I happen to think we're all like siblings fighting and roughhousing at home, getting ready to face a far tougher world as adults, where more struggle surely awaits.

Still, I'm not here to attack Hope, or the Woman Stuck With The Man From Hope, believe me.

I just have a question.

I write crummy diaries.  Somehow, I don't get my main question out there.

SOS!  Edwards Supporters!  SOS!

This wasn't meant to be a discussion about Feingold's non-endorsement of Edwards.

What I really meant to ask is,

When is it time for JRE to fold up?

Throw me a lifesaver.  Ouch...not candy!  

Seriously, I'm beginning to question.

I'm behind JRE because he seems like the candidate who's the most prepared to rumble in the jungle with all the DC sleaze.

But, when Russ Feingold says he's problematic, I got a problem, automatically!  Follow me after the fold....

Is it me, or does it seem like a lot of stuff has been going down lately?  Where does a frightened progressive turn?

To news that the President's National Security Advisor literally ignored frantic warnings two months before 9/11? That she withheld this fact from a congressional investigation?

To news that Republican congressional leadership has been protecting, perhaps encouraging, a sexual predator for a year now?

For me, I still can't get past the passage of the Military Commissions Act.  Why does this still fester like an infected wound, when there's so much other action going down?

Somehow, this legislation has convinced me that the World really can't wait any longer...

I've heard it before.  Politics is the art of the possible.

I see an exciting candidate for Senate in my home state, the state that turned the last presidential election.  He's challenging one of the poorest excuses for a Senator in these United States, a "moderate" senator who wants to enable the President to break the law of the land.  The challenger is a liberal with bona fides as far as the eye can see.

Today, I see the liberal challenger vote FOR torture.  I see him vote FOR disregarding a civil liberty that is approaching 800 years old.  I'm told it's because he's locked in a close race for the US Senate, in a conservative state.

I see that the closest that we progressives seem to be able to get to a role model right now is a really, really smart guy with great Charisma (and even better hair) who leads, but never seems to miss an opportunity to disappoint.

Are there no bright lines in politics?  Do we have to check our ideals at the door?  Do we have to triangulate to move things forward?

Maybe Senator Obama has the answer.

Maybe not.

The main argument against the filibuster is that our Republican friends, along with their liberal media, will try convince the entire universe that Democrats are cursed (pronounced "cur-SAID") obstructionists. But, what's wrong with being a cursed obstructionist if you passionately believe in the fundamental significance of your obstruction?  Nothing...but that's a very high bar to jump.  

And, how would you convince the universe that obstruction is critically important at this time in human history?  You make a visible and significant sacrifice.  A personal sacrifice which is difficult, even painful.  How about a real, old-fashioned filibuster?