Obama and Clinton give lukewarm support to FISA filibuster
Barack Obama and Hiilary Clinton have finally finished consulting with their focus groups and have offered lukewarm support of filibustering FISA if the telco immunity provision stays intact, as Kos is reporting. Clinton hasn’t even read the bill yet, but promises to “study it very hard.”
The Obama campaign issued the following statement:
“Senator Obama has serious concerns about many provisions in this bill, especially the provision on giving retroactive immunity to the telephone companies. He is hopeful that this bill can be improved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. But if the bill comes to the Senate floor in its current form, he would support a filibuster of it.”
Clinton said:
HRC: I am troubled by the concerns that have been raised by the recent legislation reported out of the Intelligence Committee. I haven’t seen it so I can’t express an opinion about it. But I don’t trust the Bush Administration with our civil rights and liberties. So I’m going to study it very hard. As matters stand now, I could not support it and I would support a filibuster absent additional information coming forward that would convince me differently.
Now, of course it’s a good thing that they’re finally on board and let’s give ‘em props on that, but more strongly worded statements would certainly inspire more confidence on the actual occurence of some follow through, And the fact remains that as ‘front-runners”, they should have been running to the front on this issue instead of following Dodd and (gasp!) Biden.I suspect that if/when the filibuster occurs, they will both offer rather muted support. We shall see.
