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Yes, sadly, it is usually the "good guys" who have to do the right thing.
Thomas Jefferson, for example, after he was elected President in 1800, allowed the Alien and Sedition acts to expire. He could have used those laws, passed by Adams' Federalist congress, to close down Federalist newspapers and imprison Federalist journalists just as the Federalists, when they were in power, had done to his allies. Instead, Jefferson did the right thing and turned the other cheek. The result is that the First Amendment to the Constitution was preserved and is now the cornerstone of our Constitutional rights, but for a while there the Bill of Rights was a meaningless addition to the Constitution. Jefferson chose to make freedom of the press a political reality and not just some ideals expressed on paper.
I hope that Obama does not have to "do the right thing" for the benefit of the party, but, if he is faced with that choice, I hope he does the right thing.
-Laelth
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