I think the deal with the FISA bill was that the entire FISA system was set to expire in August, which is something that no one wanted to happen. So even though a lot of people weren't happy with all of the bill, no one wanted it to completely expire and have absolutely no way to wiretap foreign terrorists. That seems like the responsible thing to do, given the choices. There was not enough support to sustain a fillibuster, so you can't really fault him for not supporting a fillibuster if one never happened. And the Dodd ammendment failed. If I were in his position, I would have done the same --- it would not have been responsible to let the FISA provisions completely expire over the issue of whether these telecoms get retroactive immunity for cooperating with Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping.

As I understood it, the original problem was not FISA itself --- it was that Bush was not following FISA and was wiretapping outside of the FISA provisions, without warrants. My understanding is that the new FISA authorization clarifies that FISA is the last word on this kind of wiretapping and the president can't circumvent it the way he was before (a good thing). And it includes the retroacrive immunity to protect companies that cooperated when the president was illegally circumventing FISA before (a bad thing). On balance, weighing the good changes and the bad changes, and considering that FISA is necessary in my opinion, I think it was probably a good vote, even if it pisses a few supporters off.