It’s not just John McCain who is calling Barack Obama a flip-flopper. Former supporters are expressing anger over Obama’s recent decisions to forgo public funding of his campaign and to back a wiretapping bill that includes provisions he had once pledged to oppose.
Obama waited until late Friday afternoon to announce that he was backing bipartisan legislation to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The bill includes a provision that shields telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop after 9/11. The legislation also allows special courts to approve warrants for the government to cast a wide surveillance net instead of targeting one suspect at a time. Critics of the bill believe this will unlawfully subject many Americans to secret surveillance, and many are angry that Obama backed down on an earlier pledge to oppose such language.
“This will make the left of the Democratic Party angry. They are very purist on this kind of thing,” Democratic strategist Peter Fenn said Monday. “They will not be happy with this, but my sense is they know they have got someone who cares about civil liberties and will be much better than this president at trying to balance civil liberties and fighting terrorism.”
The blogosphere was peppered with outraged posts as soon as Obama announced his support of the FISA bill, which the Senate is expected to pass this week.
“The only CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN has been in his positions,” one person commented on a blog announcing Obama’s support. “It is sad, as he does not have to dance to a different tune every day to get elected.”
Obama campaign aides Monday declined to talk about the FISA bill and instead pointed to the comment he issued late Friday.
“It is not all that I would want,” Obama said. “But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay.”
Obama’s FISA support came one day after he announced his campaign would not use public financing. Obama had months earlier signed a pledge to use the public financing system if the Republican nominee agreed to do so.
Obama told supporters last week in a videotaped message that he was bypassing the public financing route in order to combat the so-called 527 groups “who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations” on “smears and attacks” against him.
Obama’s rationale did not sway campaign reform activists like Fred Wertheimer, head of the watchdog group Democracy 21, who was disappointed Obama did not stick to his promise.
“Senator Obama knew the circumstances surrounding the presidential general election when he made his public pledge to use the system,” Wertheimer said. Given Obama’s historic fundraising abilities, few political observers expected him to take public financing, which would have limited his spending.
