Unsettled

Three significant disappointments in the space of a single week, from the direction of Mr. Obama... I guess I was right in not feeling "inspired" by his so called trailblazing run.
1. His statement on public financing. Here it's not so much the principle of private financing that I object to; although, of course, I would like to see it abolished, with the same intensity (and the same hope for success) one might put in hoping to be forever young, smart and rich. Nor do I object quite so much to Obama changing his mind. That continues to be for me the sign of a reasonable person who realizes circumstances change. Flip flopping charges are in most cases just nitpicking when you don't have a stronger case against someone. What I truly object to is the kind of argument Obama made in support of his change of heart; his argument that the public system is broken is specious; his claim that McCain and the republicans are gaming the system is ridiculous given 1) that democrats do the same; 2) the general reluctance of a certain sizable portion of the republican voters to support McCain. In a word, Obama engages in sophistry just like Hillary did when arguing for counting the Florida and Michigan votes, that is, changing the rules in the middle of the game. If Obama had said: "I changed my mind because circumstances are different (that is: I can make a lot more money privately and ensure that I will win)", then I would have been ok with it.
2. FISA vote. This is a big one. Voting to grant immunity to the telecoms who broke the law is not only against his previous statements, it is against the law as it currently stands, and it is against common sense. And I realize the word immunity is not in the law, that instead there is a process and so on. Still, that is not how this should work. I realize Obama's biggest fear is to be branded soft on terrorism come fall. Yet I would venture that the public doesn't really care or doesn't really see the issues as related. Except for a few nuts, who care about principles, what the public knows and cares about telecoms is that they may be able to provide the new IPhone with a 10% discount for a two year contract. Moreover: it is not as if these companies we strive so much to grant immunity from lawsuits to never have had a lawsuit on their hands; it isn't as if they haven't had even one or two class action suits to fight or settle; or as if they don't already have huge legal teams and budgets allocated to fighting or settling such issues; it is not as if their customers wouldn't anyway end up paying in higher costs or fees any penalty a class action suit over breaking the law and spying on us would entail; it is not as if they had an untarnished reputation. So why bother defend them in Congress? Why give up your principles, Mr. Obama?
3. Courting the "evangelical voters". He was quoted somewhere saying that even though he knows he will not win these voters over, he still wants them to know he is a person of faith and that he is listening to them. Well here is the problem: the evangelical voter should not be courted by anyone. The evangelical voter should not exist, and in truth it does not exist: it is simply a category made up by some uninspired republicans so that they may group together voters who have no business voting together, from the country club gentleman to the trailer park population. The Republican Party would be a lot better off without the evangelical voter illusion. Not only that: it is a sign of a maturing democracy to move away from voting on ethnic and religious criteria. Parliamentarian democracies based entirely in ethnic or religious differences will end up arguing the wrong types of arguments, and it is a small distance from debating the wrong argument to arguing with the wrong kinds of tools. That is why, 2500 years ago, Cleisthenes of Athens broke down the ancient Athenian tribes based on family and clan loyalties into geographic and socio-economic units. America on the other hand, with its insistence of cultivating a so called religious vote (in opposition to those other voters who vote non-religiously) seems to move backwards... This is why Obama's courting of the "religious" vote is so disappointing. Here, as in the issue with FISA and the one with the public financing, he simply contributes to preserving a state of fact that is damaging both the American democracy and the American republic.