Sometimes I get seriously pissed when I come here to read posts.

Not because I don't expect people to disagree with my viewpoint.  I generally love a good healthy, reasoned debate.  Unfortunately, for some reasoned doesn't come into play.

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Here's a possibility nobody seems to have considered in all the Obama/FISA brouhaha.

Maybe Obama isn't jumping to the right for political expediency.  Maybe Obama isn't afraid of Republicans calling him soft on terrorism.  Maybe he's not cynically using the terrorism card to scare up votes.

Maybe he just honest-to-god thinks that the American people are safer if the legislation passes.

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This diary is an expanded/revised version of a comment I made in response to a post entitled "Substance"< http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/29/1339 50/425> by Sam Graham Felsen, an official blogger for the Obama campaign, responding to some of the recent criticisms that had been surfacing about Senator Obama, particularly about whether he is all style and no substance and whether he lacks the experience needed to be president. While I was pleased to see a response from the Obama campaign to these criticisms I was disappointed that it seemed to boil down to "Our critics are all a bunch of cynics who don't understand our unique campaign." Indeed, that seems to be a constant Obama campaign theme, and one that troubles me greatly. Unfortunately, Sam never responded to my comment; and while I am grateful to the one Obama supporter (aiko) who responded, I'm hoping that, perhaps, posting this diary will allow me to have a further dialogue with Obama supporters.  

First off, I want to state that I don't support any of the current Democratic presidential candidates. I spent 23 months running a blog encouraging Senator Russ Feingold to run for president...and, since he decided not run, I've spent most of my time wishing he had decided differently.

Second, I'd like to state that I really want to like Senator Obama. I grew up in Illinois and, while I was home from college in Summer 2003 I emailed the Obama campaign, as soon as he announced, to see if they needed interns/volunteers (I knew about Obama because of the Illinois campaign finance/ethics reforms he worked on with Senator Paul Simon.) I ended up getting involved with the Dean campaign and never got to help the Obama campaign, but I stayed excited about Obama, and his 2004 convention speech made me an even bigger fan.

But I can't help but be skeptical about Obama's presidential campaign. And Sam's post just reinforced my skepticism.

I believe questions about both Senator Obama's experience for the presidency and the positions he'd pursue as president are totally legitimate questions for voters to be asking. Yet it seems that the Obama campaign thinks that makes me a cynic. (Which I may well be...but not because I have those questions about Senator Obama).

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