NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Published on Friday, June 27, 2008 by Salon.com Keith Olbermann: Then and Now by Glenn Greenwald On January 31 of this year, Keith Olbermann donned his most serious face and most indignant voice tone to rail against George Bush for supporting telecom immunity and revisions to FISA. In a 10-minute “Special Comment,” the MSNBC star condemned Bush for wanting to “retroactively immunize corporate criminals,” and said that telecom immnity is “an ex post facto law, which would clear the phone giants from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with [Bush’s] illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass email.” Olbermann added that telecom amnesty was a “shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of Fascism — the merged efforts of government and corporations that answer to no government.” Noting the numerous telecom lobbyists

The Democratic leadership in the House and Senate has set the stage for a spectacular cave in to the demands of the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans. One looming question remains however, and that is how much or how forcefully will Barack Obama challenge the Democratic folding to Bush on the FISA and telecom immunity issue. This issue, while not big amongst pundits as one of those issues polling data says Americans care about, represents two crucial tests for Obama and his campaign. First, there is the idea that Obama's campaign has promoted, that their candidate will break with the long-standing Democratic party tradition of backing down from any fight over national security issues with Republicans. Instead Obama is proposing to stand up to Republicans and not let them control the terms of the debate. Given his position on the FISA issue so far, its seems however that he's already given up the terms to Bush on this one. Secondly, will Obama continue another D