Feingold's comment is very interesting, as he has been perhaps the most vocal opponent of increased government intrusion into citizens' lives starting with the original Patriot Act.  In fact, his statement is somewhat of a mirror of Obama's statement defending Feingold and others for voting for Roberts and Alito for the Supreme Court.

At the same time, it is a warning to Obama that he better follow through after he becomes President or Feingold is going to hold him very much accountable.

Obama's statement is a request to be held accountable by everybody.  He is promising to do a revamp of all the extensions of executive power and to curtail it in a manner that will have meaning to future administrations and he more than anybody knows how powerful the grassroots (notice I did not say netroots) can be.

But the real point of this comment deals with ideological purity.  For years the left side of the blogosphere has been very condemnatory of the Republican tendency to walk in lock step with the adminstration and the party talking points.  It has decried this form ofideological purity, but apparently only because the ideology was one they disagreed with.

Now they are demanding the same level of ideological purity from Democrats, since their ideology is the ascendant one.  I think there is a word that describes this behavior.  It is called hypocrisy.