Democrats Should Declare Censure Move ‘Irresponsible’
Roll Call Executive Editor
The best thing that can be said about the call by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) to censure President Bush is that practically none of his colleagues is backing him up.
Democrats are not, as he charges, “cowering” in the face of possible Republican allegations that they are pro-terrorist. Rather, they don’t want to distract attention from the main Democratic assaults on Bush and the GOP — that he’s “incompetent” and that Republicans are in “disarray.”
Moreover, as The New York Times reported Thursday, Feingold’s move is being used by Republicans, right-wing talk show hosts and conservatives in general to motivate the base.
It’s suddenly occurring to Republicans that if Democrats capture control of either chamber of Congress, they’ll use their subpoena power to make life pure hell for Bush and the GOP over the next two years.
And, if it’s the House that Democrats carry, it’s not out of the question that impeachment proceedings could be launched against him in a Judiciary Committee chaired by firebrand lefty Rep. John Conyers (Mich.).
However demoralized Republicans are about Bush and the state of the country, the prospect of seeing him pilloried should help bring out GOP voters.
Moreover, the idea that Democrats might impeach Bush could turn off ordinary voters, much as the impeachment of President Bill Clinton did in 1998. That cost Republicans four House seats, a loss that led to the ousting of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
Feingold himself has said he thinks Bush has committed an impeachable offense by ordering “secret” and “illegal” National Security Agency wiretaps of “domestic” terrorist targets. He claims he’s being “moderate” by moving to only censure Bush.
In fact, the whole enterprise is irresponsible — and I’d like to believe that’s another reason why Democrats are ducking endorsement of Feingold’s action, even though no party leader has actually used that word in public.
While Democratic leaders don’t want to endorse Feingold’s move, they also are evidently cowering at the prospect of being further savaged by left-wing Web loggers who already are denouncing them for being “soft” on Bush.
Feingold himself admits that he favors wiretapping terrorists and would not stop the program Bush has undertaken, which he says “can easily be done” under existing law.
If that’s the case, then the responsible thing for a Senator to do — especially someone who wants to be president — would be to find a way to adjust the law to enable the government to find out what terrorists are up to, rather than punishing a president who believed he had to skirt the law to do it.
In any event, Bush did report what he was doing to Congressional leaders, including Democrats, so it was not entirely “secret.” It’s not clear — because details of the program are secret — why Bush believed he could not comply with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and obtain warrants for the taps. If FISA procedures are too onerous, the responsible thing would be to make them less so.
Moreover, there’s no evidence whatsoever that any innocent Americans have been harmed as a result of the NSA wiretaps or that Bush has ordered them for some nefarious or political purpose.
Feingold wants to censure Bush — and personally believes it’s impeachable — for, at worst, an excess of diligence in protecting the country from terrorists who have vowed to kill millions of us if they can. This is scarcely a “high crime” or even a “crime.”
Feingold has the reputation of being a sincere and principled civil libertarian, liberal and foreign policy dove. So, it seems he’s being honest in his irresponsibility.
On the other hand, what he’s doing is also politically advantageous, short-term, for his presidential prospects, even as it’s politically disastrous for the Democratic Party as a whole. I’d say it’s also politically polarizing and dangerous for the country.
Feingold hopes to distinguish himself among all the other male candidates chasing front-running Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) — and steal some of the ardent lefties who might otherwise support her and who now see him as more courageous than she.
Feingold wants to become the leading 2008 candidate of the anti-war left of the Democratic Party — the wing that nominated another sincere, principled anti-war liberal, Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.), in 1972. He lost 49 states to President Richard Nixon that fall.
Feingold’s move reinforces the party’s image as “McGovernite” — weak on national security — at a time when Bush’s inept Hurricane Katrina response and the Dubai ports disaster has given Democrats an opening to knock Bush on homeland security.
Democrats seem to understand the danger of repeating the McGovern mistake. That’s why they rejected now-Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean as their 2004 nominee and picked Vietnam War veteran Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) as an “electable” alternative. Right now, most Democrats are similarly shying away from Feingold’s censure initiative, deeming it too far out.
On the other hand, Bush-hatred and partisanship is so intense among Democrats that their leaders often go far out themselves, as when House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) embraced the proposal for a rapid withdrawal from Iraq by Rep. John Murtha (Pa.), and when Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) labeled various GOP Senators as corrupt and had to apologize.
Such conduct is a gift to Republicans. As Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told me, “every time us Republicans get into trouble, along come the Democrats to help us out.”
Still, if Feingold’s move is another gift to the GOP, it’s not a gift to the country. The more left-wing activists pressure Democrats and right-wing activists pressure Republicans, the less chance there is that the two parties can come together to win the country’s wars and solve its problems.
The latest bipartisan George Washington University Battleground survey shows that the public hates this back-and-forth. Asked whether they preferred that Members of Congress possess “strength of values and convictions” or “willingness to find practical, workable solutions,” respondents favored “workable solutions” by 58 percent to 38 percent.
This suggests that the country hungers for a real “uniter” not “divider” as president in 2008. And that would not be Russ Feingold.
Energy and Commerce Committee: Barton Holds the Line for the GOP
March 15, 12 a.m.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) knows he’s outnumbered. He knows the Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where he serves as ranking member, have the ability to “slam things through” when they want to. Read Full Article
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