A tough time for politics.

[babylonsister]

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/06/a-tough-time-for-politics.php

A tough time for politics.
By TTGZ - June 22, 2008, 12:19PM

Let me begin with an anecdote from last year. It was some time in the middle of September, and I was working at the Center for Constitutional Rights as a Communications Intern. My girlfriend and I had long had a plan to try to go see Obama speak - perhaps in an intimate town-hall in New Hampshire. But the news came up in our inboxes that he was doing a rally in downtown DC, so we arranged to take the day to drive down, go to the rally, and then head back to the city late at night.

It was an amazing rally - a beautiful summer's evening, the setting sun glimmering across the glass buildings surrounding the packed parking lot on H & 11th, and we had a really good spot at the rally, on the podium at the back. The rally was uplifting, moving, emotional, and bought us both close to tears on occasion. This was back when he was using the closing riff with "Fired Up!" "Ready to go!", and ending his speech with, "Let's go change the world!". Needless to say, we left feeling pretty fired up.

But then, the next morning, I went back to work at the CCR, and looked at the things I was working on: Guantanamo Detainees, NSA Illegal Wiretapping, Rendition, Torture, Corporate Exploitation.... it was one of the most depressing contrasts I've ever experienced.

And I think it goes a long way to explain what a lot of netroots activists are feeling right now over the FISA/Obama business. This is a depressing time in our national politics, because we have come together as a party, won the nomination, set our sights on the White House......... and yet.... Bush 43 is still in there. No matter how many times we utter the phrase, "lame duck", the reality is that we are still living under the dark days of the Bush Presidency, and the campaign going on right now is still occurring under the specter of that Presidency. While we feel so close to going and changing the world, it is difficult to remind ourselves that we haven't quite got there yet.

There's going to be a lot that we're going to have to swallow over the next few months, but we need to remember that the Obama movement has never just been about one faction - the liberal online faction - of the Democratic Party (even if the MSM want to paint us all as latte liberals and college professors...). This movement is about everyone. Everyone. And so while here in the blogosphere it would be easy to think that the only thing that Obama has done in the last few days has been to 'cave' on FISA, we need to remember that he's also been pushing his college tuition tax credit plan, which would dramatically improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of middle class families, he's been driving home his economic message in the Midwest where thousands of jobs have been lost, and he's convened a National Security Advisory panel to help formulate the nuts and bolts of a Foreign Policy which will seek to bring an end to the cowboy destruction we've seen wreaked around the world these last seven and a half years. There's six months left. Let's not lose sight of the goal.

[TwilightGardener]

1. Sorry, nothing less than perfection and uncompromising purity will suffice.