New York Times Slams Senate and Obama Over FISA

Mostly it's the Senate, that they condemn, though the distinguished Senator from Illinois is mentioned. It is a remarkably full throated condemnation of Senate, and Democratic cowardice:

Democratic Senators Patrick Leahy, Russ Feingold, Christopher Dodd and Jeff Bingaman plan to offer amendments to do that, but there is little chance they will pass. The Senate should reject this bill and start over with modest legislation that makes the small needed changes and preserves Americans’ fundamental protections.

Senator John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee for president, has supported the weakening of FISA. Senator Barack Obama vowed in January (when he was still fighting for the Democratic nomination) that he would filibuster against immunity. Now he says he will vote for an “imperfect” bill and fix it if he wins. Sound familiar?

Proponents of the FISA deal say companies should not be “punished” for cooperating with the government. That’s Washington-speak for a cover-up. The purpose of withholding immunity is not to punish but to preserve the only chance of unearthing the details of Mr. Bush’s outlaw eavesdropping. Only a few senators, by the way, know just what those companies did.

Restoring some of the protections taken away by an earlier law while creating new loopholes in the Constitution is not a compromise. It is a failure of leadership.

We know that the Times is right about this, because Fred Hiatt, the editor of the end worst OP/ED page in the nation^™*, finds flip flopping by Obama, specifically on Iraq, to be laudable, , and believes that the FISA bill is just ducky thank you, which proves the NY times correct.

If you go against the WaPo editorial pages, you will be right an embarrassing amount of the time., and the Times is right this time; there is far more to hate about the bill than telco immunity.

^*The undisputed champion of wanktacular OP/ED pages, by a knockout, is still the Wall Street Journal.