Just a thought.

His troubles aren't that voters might not see his views, rather they might see that his views run shallow.

If this is a barometer for Obama's governing philosophy, it's ugly.

Maybe it's me, but I don't agree with the framing that supporting immunity is "moving to the middle."

When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them.

There have been similar dilemmas for the labor movement. Indeed, it is a common occurrence that unions, fighting for a new contract, must decide if they will accept an offer that gives them only part of what they have demanded. It's always a difficult decision, but in almost all cases, whether the compromise can be considered a victory or a defeat, the workers have been given some thing palpable, improving their condition to some degree. If they were offered only a promise of something in the future, while continuing an unbearable situation in the present, it would not be considered a compromise, but a sellout. A union leader who said, "Take this, it's the best we can get" [...] would be hooted off the platform.

Remember the original law was written when illegal wiretaps and such, aimed at domestic groups, such as the Weathermen, were much in the public consciousness. Right or wrong, much of the Washington power structure from both parties have decided that the threat level and environment have changed.

The main sticking point in the current negotiation was whether to grant the immunity to telcoms for their actions post-9/11. I do not think there was much disagreement (within Congress) about continuing the change in definition and scope.

Maybe Obama and his advisors decided that the law was not necessarily such a bad thing to have, assuming he might be the next president.  Maybe they also decided that having the telcom's assisting in such future intercepts was desirable.

Obama would not be the first person to realize that describing the limits on presidential authority depends on whether you're the guy in the White House, or you're in another branch of government.

Here's part of the ACLU's opinion on the FISA comrpomise bill that Barack Obama thinks is "the best we could do:"

"This bill allows for mass and untargeted surveillance of Americans' communications. The court review is mere window-dressing - all the court would look at is the procedures for the year-long dragnet and not at the who, what and why of the spying. Even this superficial court review has a gaping loophole - `exigent' circumstances can short cut even this perfunctory oversight since any delay in the onset of spying meets the test and by definition going to the court would cause at least a minimal pause. Worse yet, if the court denies an order for any reason, the government is allowed to continue surveillance throughout the appeals process, thereby rendering the role of the judiciary meaningless. In the end, there is no one to answer to; a court review without power is no court review at all."