Who is Barack Obama?  What does this cypher of a candidate stand for?  He seems to be an endless sequence of popular and conflicting platitudes upon which people project their deepest desires.  As I noted in a previous post that discussed Obama’s amazingly precise, manufactured vagueness – Obama is much like the fictional Mirror of Erised from the Harry Potter stories.  To recap, the Mirror of Erised is very much like the Enigma of Obama:

 

According to Dumbledore, the Mirror “shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts”; which is why Harry sees his family, while Ron sees himself achieving more than his older brothers — but cautions Harry that the mirror gives neither knowledge nor truth and that men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they see.

Yesterday Obama had the far left liberals scratching their heads, in utter confusion and concern, as he waffled and straddled the news that the House of Representatives had caved once again on the matter of national security, the NSA and the FIS Court.

As I noted here the new compromise is better than anything offered to date – as far as Bush and conservatives are concerned. It allowed the NSA to collect intelligence on terrorists overseas. And if that surveillance included contacts with people here in the US that information would be sent to the FBI to investigate. The NSA lead could be used as part of the evidence of probable cause in front of the FIS Court in the case the person in the US was a US citizen. But now, if the person inside the US is not a US citizen, there are a different set of rules and process that allow the US to make sure these non-citizens are not actually terrorists trying to execute another 9-11.

And there was defacto amnesty for the telecoms who simply need to go to the FIS Court and say they were acting on the request of the administration in accordance to rules and FIS Court surveillance orders to have the civil cases currently filed against them tossed out.

This has been an enormous set back for the far left. And try as they can, the media has not been able to dupe the far left into believing this was some great success. There is not enough lipstick in the world to cover up this pig of a defeat for the anti-war left.

And what did Obama say about this huge setback? Basically nothing, leaving the impression it was a good thing, and he would fight to fix it:

“After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year’s Protect America Act.

“Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President’s illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over.

Actually, nothing has changed – which is why Bush is smiling and the liberals are fuming. It seems Obama of Erised has been tarnished quite a bit by this statement, probably because of the shock on the left that Obama is as vacuous and duplicitous as is opposition (McCain and Hillary) have been claiming all along. Check out these responses to The Messiah:

He’ll work  “to remove this provision” and promises going forward that there will be full accounatbility if only we turn Bush’s spy apparatus over to him? That’s not good enough. There are a lot of unhappy activists out there.

Greg Sargent:

To be clear, I’m not even talking about whether opposing this would or wouldn’t have carried political peril. It really doesn’t matter. Because if there were ever anything that would have tested his operating premise throughout this campaign — that you can win arguments with Republicans about national security — it was this legislation. If ever there were anything that deserved to test this premise, it was this legislation.

And this time, he abandoned that premise.

DDay at Hullabaloo:

“Work to remove” telecom immunity should be rewritten to “maybe show up to vote on some amendment that will surely be struck down and then whimper away.” What a colossal failure of leadership.

Obama earns a Wanker of the Day from Atrios. And it’s well-deserved. I thought he’d issue some vague statement of disapproval and then miss the vote. This endorsement of a X’ing out the Fourth Amendment is waaaay out of bounds.

Obama has been playing this game forever.  But now, when he has to be acceptable to the broader, non-liberal American electorate, Obama is not hinting at being a closet liberal.  He is not hinting at being a closet non-liberal.   Now everyone is asking the question: who is Barack Obama and what are his plans if he get’s into the Oval Office?  Sort of reminds me of an old TV game show:

 

 

What is Obama’s ‘line’? What does he stand for besides a calculated quest for power by being the perfect Rorshache candidate, displaying no convictions, carrying no historic baggage.

Obama has crafted the perfect blank slate upon which the easily duped have projected their own desires. But now it seems the chameleon has run into a huge problem, wherein the views of the general election voter conflict with the views of those who brought him to this point. And as is his fashion, the chameleon has tossed those who brought him under the bus as he tries to appease the next crowd he needs to gain power. But still America wants to know – who are you Obama, and what’s your line?

Update:  Much more Obama fun here at No Quarter

Tags: 2008 Election, FISA, Mirror of Erised, NSA, Obama