According to conventional wisdom, the only way a woman will be elected President of the United States is if she’s thought to be aggressive when it comes to the use of our military. Knowing this, it would seem, Hillary Clinton chose to support a war that she knew was wrong. And, I, and many others, held it against her when it came time to vote in the primary. Barack Obama made the right choice on the war, but now it seems that he’s falling into the same trap. In order to come across as strong on terrorism, and thus look Presidential, he’s voting for legislation that he otherwise wouldn’t support. Perhaps it’s not as egregious a violation as voting to authorize an unprovoked, illegal war, but it could still cost him the support of some on the left, who want to support a candidate of character that they can really believe in.

Here’s a clip from the “Washington Post”:

Sen. Barack Obama today announced his support for a sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been heavily denounced by the liberal activists who have fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign.

In his most substantive break with the Democratic Party’s base since becoming the presumptive nominee, Obama declared he will support the bill when it comes to a Senate vote, likely next week, despite misgivings about legal provisions for telecommunications corporations that cooperated with the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program of suspected terrorists.

In so doing, Obama sought to walk the fine political line between GOP accusations that he is weak on foreign policy – Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called passing the legislation a “vital national security matter” – and alienating his base…

Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) continue to oppose the new legislation, as does Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). All Obama backers in the primary, those senior lawmakers contend that the new version of the FISA law – crafted after four months of intense negotiations between White House aides and congressional leaders – provides insufficient court review of the pending 40 lawsuits against the telecommunications companies alleging privacy invasion for their participation in a warrantless wiretapping program after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001…

But, I suppose Obama, even with this vote, is still a better choice than that America-hating addict-lover.

My guess is that he won’t lose the left on this. We’re not naive. We know trade-offs need to be made in order to win the White House. We just think it sucks.