ABC News reports (via Geraghty):
In a new interview with National Journal magazine, an intelligence adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign broke with his candidate's position opposing retroactive legal protection for telecommunications companies being sued for cooperating with a dubious U.S. government domestic surveillance program.
"I do believe strongly that [telecoms] should be granted that immunity," former CIA official John Brennan told National Journal reporter Shane Harris in the interview. "They were told to [cooperate] by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context."
"I know people are concerned about that, but I do believe that's the right thing to do," added Brennan, who is an intelligence and foreign policy adviser to Obama.
Susan Rice says he's not ready for that 3 am phone call. Samantha Power calls Hillary a monster AND says he's bluffing on withdrawing forces from Iraq. Austan Goolsbee says he's bluffing on NAFTA. And now this. He's bluffing on telecom immunity.
The funny thing is that these advisers are all right. Obama's in lala land making promises he can't possibly keep and his advisers are just stating the obvious. Their guy has no experience (not an automatic disqualification for office), he isn't going to pull troops out of Iraq (because that would be crazy), he isn't going to withdraw from NAFTA (also crazy), and he isn't going to let telecom companies go bankrupt because they did their patriotic duty.
If anything, he's surrounded himself with smart people. That's something.
