Progressive Democratic Group Attempts To Bribe Barack Obama Into 'Respecting' Them

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Recently Congress passed an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), with a 293 to 129 vote, which included a very controversial issue to provide immunity to telecommunications companies that provided data to the U.S. administration.

That bill is to be considered in the U.S. Senate and they have already voted for Cloture on that bill with an 80 to 15 vote with 5 Senators not voting, which means that the Senate will now consider the motion to proceed with the bill before getting to the actual bill itself.

Barack Obama made a statement:

Excerpt:

"It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people."

After his first speech, the progressive left went on a campaign to make him change his mind and then he made another statement in response to a questions asked about his previous view versus his present view, saying, "My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people." (Video of that statement above)

That statement sent a ripple throughout the liberal blogosphere and some media outlets, with criticisms coming from all directions and the popular progressive liberal website of DailyKos accusing Obama of going back on his previous words.

In a reversal of previous policy statements, from October, 2007 and January, 2008, and again in February, 2008, Barack Obama now says telco amnesty just isn't that important.

Others followed suit and one group even started on Obama's own official website, which headlines, "Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right."

This group is being reported as having more than 14,500 members as of Thursday morning, making it Number one in overall membership on his official website.

Another group, Democrats.com, now has decided that to use money to ensure that Barack Obama lives up to his promise to deliver "change we can believe in."

The idea: Create a $1 million pool of pledged contributions that Obama won't see until he returns to demonstrating "progressive leadership" on issues such as electronic wiretapping by the federal government.

One excerpt of an email that the president of Democrats.com sent out says:

We can get Obama's respect because needs our money - he turned down $85 million in taxpayer dollars because he believes small donors like us will contribute $300 million. And now is the best time to use our modest leverage, before the campaign goes all-out after the convention.

We are setting an ambitious goal of $1 million, which is hopefully large enough to get some respect.

One of the definitions of the word "bribe" is:

4. to influence or corrupt by a bribe

Democrats.com is attempting to pressure Barack Obama, or in this case, as they are clearly stating, to use money as a leverage to pressure and force Barack Obama to change his publicly stated position regarding his support of the FISA bill.

[Update] One particular sentence from a Washington Post editorial sticks out, where they state that this who issue is a case of "the Internet tail wagging the legislative dog."