Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., no doubt wants to stand out among Democratic presidential hopefuls. That surely has something to do with his proposal, made Sunday on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” that the Senate censure President Bush over the warrantless wiretapping of Americans. “This conduct is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors,” he said. Of course, if Feingold seriously thinks this GOP-controlled Senate would do such a thing, his judgment is in question. But in the unlikely event that the Democrats win enough seats in November to take control of the Senate, the House or both, the winners may feel emboldened to pursue censure and even impeachment.
For those attracted to the latter idea, I have two words: President Cheney.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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26 Comments
Ronda please my heart!!!! We have all consider that, it would have to be a clean swipe of all the President’s men, women, dogs, cats, pictures, anything to do with G.W. Bush would have to go out the door for the sake of the country. His name forever wiped from the face of the planet. Ok that is a little exstream. But you get my drift?
…not if Cheney is complicit in anything….nah, scratch that, not DICK !!
A true congressional investigation of Plame Gate would take out Cheney, who’s the next scum bag in line, Hastert-Abramoff.
He is trying to attract the radical neo-liberals for the primaries in 2008.
Wrong move in my opinion. Other Democrats in the Senate will avoid him like a venereal disease. He will have no legitmacy for the next two years coming into the Presidential election, because of this stunt.
Oh well! Partisan Politics for ya.
Finally we’ve got a Democrat whose willing to throw down the gauntlet in the face of facism.
It may be a “stunt,” but it’s a damn good one.
Speaking of avoiding somebody like VD, that’s the way the Republicans are feeling about Bush . . .
Dont forget that Spiro Agnew was conveniently removed before Nixon. I think Dead Eye Dick has way more reason to be worried than Spiro. That would, once again, pave the way to remove a president.
One small problem though…
This is a moot point as long as republicans control both houses. Remember, they will support shrub even if a live boy, a dead girl, AND a hammered kitten were found in king george’s bed.
Call their bluff Frist! Make the lily-livered Dems vote on that censure!!! They’ll fold like the French-men they are!
Is there a Candidate that would be a Good President?
John McCain made a cute play to enhance his chances for the Presidency by encouraging Republicans to cast their straw poll votes for Bush at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. He knew he was going to lose, so he tried to invalidate the results.
Now we have Russ Feingold trying a similar disingenuous move in his bid to become the candidate of choice for the left wing of the Democratic party, by introducing a censure of President Bush. Feingold knows full well it has no chance of being supported, not just among Republicans, but by the main stream candidates of his own party. The object is to gain support among those disenchanted with Hillary Clinton’s effort to position herself as a moderate.
A pox on both of these candidates. Tricks and cynical political moves are not the stuff of which good Presidential candidates should be made. We have much too much in the way of political figures playing for sound bites, prevaricating, and manipulating rather than illuminating. Maybe it is naive to expect straight shooters who lay out sincere, honest, and serious positions on the important issues.
The media does not help. After a political speech or debate the press critiques “the performance” and not the substance of what was said. Rather than a credible analysis of the issues, they talk about how many times the politician blinked, tapped a pencil, or smiled.
For our sake, I hope both parties have candidates emerge from the pack to give the American people a reasonable choice between two principled grownups. The Presidency is more than a chance to gain partisan advantage. Regardless of your political leaning, the President of the United States should be someone who can be trusted to put the interests of the country above games and political ploys.
Does character matter? When the nation faces critical and often unpredicted events, character – and mature, reasoned judgment – are the most important characteristics we need in a President. Which candidates in your view fit that bill?
http://theflyoverzone.blogspot.com/2006/03/is-there-candidate-that-would-be-good.html
Condoleeza Rice.
Currently the Democrats do not have a credible candidate for president. Not now, and not in the future.
Hank, it’s not so much that I dissagree with you; I just think Condi is in the same fix as Hillary…unelectable. Personally, I don’t share most of my Liberal friends views on Condi. I like her a lot better than Frist, Brownback, and McCain. I think she’d be 10 times a better president than Bush. But she’s a woman, and she’s black, and say what you will, but that’s going to hurt her with a sizable chunk of republican voters (think southern, think NASCAR). Southern white males may say one thing, but at the polls, they’ll vote against her.
I think an election between Hillary and Condi would be a thing to remember.
It is amazing how many people can get into Senator Feingold’s head to understand his motivation.
You can not have it both ways! The Democrats don’t stand for anything, yet, when they do you throw stones.
Ignore who put forth the censure proposal and ask, “is it the right thing to do?” Of course the answer is yes! In order to protect Democracy… Someone has to stand up to this illegal use of power.
Now who do we call to support the censure? Brownback? He is God’s Senator not Kansas. Roberts? He is bush’s lacky.
“Does character matter? When the nation faces critical and often unpredicted events, character – and mature, reasoned judgment – are the most important characteristics we need in a President.”
And George W. Bush fits that description in your fevered imagination, eh Brandon?
Un EFFING believable!
Anyone who rewards this moron by clicking on his pimp-posts deserves to be sentenced to read nothing but Brandon for a year . . .
BTW, excellent post, nwks!
Uh Pl I think you missed it.Brandon scored the hat trick. He has long and boring down. With this post he achieves off topic! And Hank followed along!
As nwks has said, it is well past time for the Dems to stand up. Feingold did so. Let’s hope others have a pair.
“Censure” in our system is bascially a slap at the hand. In a parliamentary system a similar move would be a “vote of no confidence”, and whould likely result in deposement.
FOr those ends, we have impeachment.
Watch the port deal play out……..
Uh Pl I think you missed it.Brandon scored the hat trick. He has long and boring down. With this post he achieves off topic! And Hank followed along!
As nwks has said, it is well past time for the Dems to stand up. Feingold did so. Let’s hope others have a pair.
“Censure” in our system is bascially a slap at the hand. In a parliamentary system a similar move would be a “vote of no confidence”, and whould likely result in deposement.
FOr those ends, we have impeachment.
Watch the port deal play out……..
I’m sorry. I hate when that happens. But my double is still shorter than Brandons single! And even in a second read …..more interesting!
LOL JR, agreed!!
Nwks18, great post buddy.
If sam is god’s senator and roberts is bush’s senator…
…who represents kansas?
Please. . . I don’t have time for this. . . Is there a Blogger’s Anonymous group? :) HELP ME! I ADMIT I HAVE A PROBLEM!
NW Kansas, kudos to you, particularly since you hail from NW Kansas. Feingold stood alone against that bullshit Patriot Act when no other Senator of any ideological stripe would. . . .and still is!
Cynicism says he’s just a smarter, gutsier Howard Dean. Well, so what? Do we want Democrats who dare to stand for something, or the same old pander-to-polls&focusgroups&twice-cooked-rhetoric-and-the-hell-with-principles we’ve been getting?
If you want the Democrats to lose again, you’ll enthusiastically favor the latter (Unless you’re the DLC: Then you want to choose a few issues to “out-Repub” the Repubs, and be deliberately muddy on everything else). The former approach is risky, but no guts, no glory.
Give me a human being. Please.
Was it “Moments of Brilliant Intellectual Clarity?”
Can I take my helmet off now? I keep bumping into things. Oops, I’ve got it on backwards.
If we were given the situation in Iraq right now, we’d be worse-off then when we started.
Can the Busholets explain how that’s progress?
There’s an old joke: I don’t believe I can stand no 2 dollars worth of that.
VandeHei’s take on the Repub strategy to use the censure against the Democrats. Note my Freudian slip at the end that I chose to let stay – sometimes your unconscious knows more than your conscious mind does (often, in my case):
Censure capers: In a Times article today there was discussion of the Republicans attempting to use the censure planned against Bush in a martial arts sort of way. Meaning, they will use it against the Democrats and feel that it will rally their base. Any sense of how good that strategy might work? Did the Republicans really suffer much from the Clinton impreachment -sic?
Thanks.
Jim VandeHei: I think the “strategy” is party the result of having little else to rally around. Republicans are divided over immigration, spending, taxes, the Iraq war so the censure resolution gives the base something they can agree on. I don’t see how a resolution with two sponsors will somehow magically cure the party’s problems.Remember the issues that really motivate the base are big tax cuts, abortion restrictions, limits on immigrations and national security. Unless the censure becomes a democratic issues, it will likely fade away like other so many other efforts before it.
“Senator Russ Feingold has discovered the key difference between leadership and grandstanding. The former involves motivating a group of people to follow your lead by engaging the group’s enthusiasm for your direction. The latter involves making decisions for others without bothering to consult them. Democrats have made clear that Feingold is a party grandstander and not a leader…”
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006525.php
That, plus it’s not been determined yet whether President Bush broke the law. Feingold insists he did (he may very well be correct) but no reasonable voter should support _this_ censure, especially when the country’s ostensibly at war, unless the president did in fact break the law.
Foot: 1Democrats: 0
Whether or not Bush gets censured or impeached will be determined by the American People. In November 2006.
Hey Rhonda.
Of course Feingold knows it is going nowhere. He’s a member of the minority party and those guys can’t even get meeting rooms with Denny Hastert around.
The real problem isn’t that he is naive – it’s that the republicans are very good at power politicsthough pretty much terrible at everything else.
Feingold and the other Dems differ on tactics though not conviction. I laud what he stands for but I disagree with his call for censure.
Work for a shift to the Dems in 06 then do serious investigations.
W and Rummy and Cheney and Rove, aided and abetted by Frist and Delay have taken this nation down the toilet. When they open their mouths nonsense comes out. Even you know that. Only the truly willfully ignorant don’t know this.
Just today warrantless searches have been exposed. With no explanation why they don’t get FISA warrants.
How can you criticise Feingold? He may be wrong but he sure hasn’t left a trail of dead behind him.
With the real issues that we face – all the domestic nonsense and the war and the deficit and the balance of trade insanity (every goddam one of them owned, lock stock and barrel by the clever application of policy by a Republican government) how can you pick Feingold to talk about. You are being knee jerk small minded conservative peevish.
My credo is “No Republicans – until their party clearly stops enabling clown/leaders and they stop this Reaganesque party loyalty crap.”
Think of it another way – do you think the last 6 years is gonna go down as a shining example of applied Republican principles?