Waaah! Obama doesn't support my issue

Not just my issue: My Most Important Ever and Nothing in This Whole Camn Dampaign Comes Close. Obama does not agree with me, he does not support this the way I do, he isn't running his campaign to match my expectations of how he should run his campaign — and that's in support of My Mostest Importanty Issue Ever and Ever.

Which means, of course, he's a failure. Is it too soon to talk of impeachment?

We are going to get a lot of this shit over the next 5 months, and then, when Barack Obama becomes president, it will only get worse. Lefties have no patience with non-believers; I know. I have no patience with non-believers. I happen to know what is right about the issues, and it makes my head hurt badly to deal with people who are to selfish, stupid, brainwashed or otherwise incapable of understanding what is so clear and obvious. Which is why I much prefer sticking to the writing thing. I can deal with people much easier when I have the opportunity to write my response and not have to deal with the personal aspects of the disagreement.

It's just how I deal with being a leftie. And it makes me crazy when I read other lefties who very publically and loudly inflict this behavior flaw on the public. Take Greg Sargent's utter disappointment with Obama and the FISA bill. Ok, I'm not happy with that decision, but then again, I'm not in the U.S. Senate, I'm not going to be the next President of the United States, and I don't live inside of Obama's skin. I also am capable of losing the forest for the trees.

When a single issue becomes so big it literally changes how we interpret the behavior and motives of other people, then that issue is clearly not the issue. I don't know why Greg Sergent feels that the telecom immunity bill is the defining bill of 2008 because I don't live inside his skin. I'm pretty sure it's not the defining issue. I'd much prefer to see Obama go to the mat over the war funding bill, given that I've got a kid preparing to go to that war. But even then, as much as I disagree with Obama on that bill, it is not the end-all and be-all of 2008 either. You know which bill, which issue is?

None of them.

There never is, at any time, any bill that rises to such a level of meaning and power that all pales before it. Bills are temporary end-products of contemporary action. Nothing more. They are a fulcrum, at best, a pivot point on which so much else depends. What matters is the on-going process of democracy. What matters is being able to get through today with the ability to do something a bit better tomorrow, and know that the flaws you have to live through today allow you to make tomorrow a bit better.

If Barack Obama decides to go to the mat over FISA or war funding, he starts to destroy his campaign. Greg Sergent thinks that's how Obama demonstrates his great moral superiority, the something special about his campaign. But Sergent really does not understand what it is about this campaign that is special. If he did, he would take his disappointment and know that something is in progress here. It's not at a place where Barack Obama can stride into the Senate and lay down The Truth — FISA shall not pass! We shall not fund the war! Barack Obama is leading a movement. He is not the movement, he is at the head of it — and millions of Americans are behind that movement.

But it's not a movement that has made deep inroads into Congress or DC. A few people there understand what's going on: Adam Smith from Washington, Claire McCaskill from Missouri, Earl Blumenauer. But the people Obama has to work with in the Senate are clueless. If he were to take the kind of grand stand Sergent demands (and others demand on their Mostest Special Ever issues), he would be slapped down, and he would find himself becoming president as did Jimmy Carter: with the full hostility of the Senate.

I have no doubt that under President Obama, a lot of these things are going to change. I know Senator Obama could take a bold stand today, push his colleagues to do what (and I agree with Sergent on this) is the right thing. But Sergent is completely wrong to demand that Obama do this one thing, just as someone else is completely wrong to do that other thing. The power that is behind Obama is not about going to DC right now and changing this Senate today. It's about changing the nation, permanently. If Greg Sergent thinks Obama wields that kind of power today, he's obviously found the glass of koolaid that's eluded me and he's drunk it down. We are nowhere near being that strong as movement. We're getting there. But it's tenuous, and it does not allow for grandstanding or for making Senators lose face.

That all sounds weak and pathetic, but guess what? That's how bad things are in this country right now. The best we can hope for in 2008, is to get the hell out of 2008 in one piece. Let's do what it takes to win this election big — and "what it takes" will generally mean standing up our principles and demonstrating that Democrats are not going to be the wimps of the past. But sometimes it also means accepting crappy decisions in Congress — and then dumping those guys out in November.

And if Greg Sergent's Really Big and Ultra-Special Issue isn't Barack Obama's pet cause of the week, too bad. That's Sergent's problem.