There are those, like Senator Russ Feingold and assorted civil liberties activists, who believe that the legalization of this program erodes essential constitutional rights of Americans. I respect their point of view, but believe that the greater good here will be the protection of Americans from terrorist attacks--and the prevention of extremist governments like George W. Bush's from illegally spying on U.S. residents.

By definition no change in the law is required to prevent illegal spying, or illegal anything for that matter.  Because ... um ... they're already illegal.

Of the list of 94 Dems in the House changing their votes to support immunity, 4 of the top 7 recipients of telecom money are 4 of the 6 top leaders of the Democratic House and Caucus Leadership.

• No. 1 - Rep. James Clyburn, SC-6 (Majority Whip) $29,500
• No. 2 - Rep. Steny Hoyer, MD-5 (Majority Leader) $29,000
• No. 3 - Rep. Rahm Emanuel, IL-5 (Democratic Caucus Chair) $28,000
• No. 7 - Rep. Nancy Pelosi, CA-8 (Speaker of the House) $24,500

Then, comes support for the transformative Dear Leader who never quite delivers and always cuts deals through no flaw of his own political character (this we learned is different for women candidates, when all decisions and positions reveal her deeply guarded character flaws). The presumptive Democratic nominee capitulates on FISA and takes steps to undermine public financing of elections. Despite the fact that the Democratic nominee has been trolling for large donors for the past three weeks (and the Democratic convention is being financed by the TelCos), but this does not discourage the "creative class" that sets about telling us that public financing is the deepest desire of undemocratic forces and that those who oppose Obama's public financing funding decision are somehow always already "teh elites" of "Teh Village."

This bit regarding Goodling et al, is not too bad either:

Congress insists on taking most of their bullets out of the chamber and then begging the executive branch to be reasonable, after they have shown no interest in ever doing so. This is how you get the DoJ hiring far-right conservatives and breaking the law with impunity. And getting caught doesn't seem to be an obstacle.

The next four to eight years, should Sen. Obama win, will be littered with "exclusive" stories from inside the DoJ of corruption and politicization and all sorts of malfeasance. These "honor" students are who those charges will be coming from. It'll be a total reversal and somebody had better recognize it.

Thing is, the GOP have gone to that Liberal=Evil well so often, they slap the label onto anything they just don't like. They've actually gone through phases of gratuitously calling each other "liberals" with no conceivable connection to an actual dictionary definition.

I do not claim them.  I don't know who does.

To belong to any particular part of the political spectrum, whether right, left, far, moderate etc, you have to espouse some some set of beliefs and work toward (even if stumblingly) enacting some set of principles into law.

This group has no such set of principles.  Instead, as corporations do, they have not principles but a goal.  One goal, to get Dems elected and get themselves re-elected.  That is what the 50 State stratery is, in total.  Which is a fine goal if you mean to use the power of the majority to actually do some good.  There is no evidence they do.