In a surprising Sunday-morning bombshell, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) announced on ABC yesterday that he will introduce a Senate resolution today calling for the censure of President Bush. Oddly enough, when I first heard about Feingold’s proposal, my first question was, “About which scandal?” (We’ve reached a point in which Bush could face censure for so many things…)
In this case, Feingold is focused on the president’s warrantless-search program.
“What the president did by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping has to be answered,” Mr. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said on the ABC News program “This Week.” “Proper accountability is a censuring of the president, saying: ‘Mr. President, acknowledge that you broke the law, return to the law, return to our system of government.’ ”
Mr. Feingold, who has said he will consider a run for the White House in 2008, said he planned to introduce his legislation on Monday. He said his censure proposal was not “a harsh approach, and it’s one that I think should lead to bipartisan support.”
Needless to say, bipartisan support is more than a little unlikely. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who was on the same ABC program, responded with predictable demagoguery.
Frist: George, what was interesting in listening to my good friend, Russ, is that he mentioned protecting the American people only one time, and although you went to politics a little bit later, I think it’s a crazy political move and I think it in part is a political move because here we are, the Republican Party, the leadership in the Congress, supporting the President of the United States as Commander in Chief, who is out there fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and the people who have sworn, have sworn to destroy Western civilization and all the families listening to us. And they’re out now attacking, at least today, through this proposed censure vote, out attacking our Commander in Chief. Doesn’t make sense.
Stephanopoulos: So you’re against it. Are you going to allow it to come up for a vote?
Frist: Well, George, this is the first I’ve heard about it. I really am surprised about it because Russ is just wrong. He is flat wrong. He is dead wrong. And as I was listening to it, I was hoping deep inside that that the leadership in Iran and other people who have the U.S. not in their best interest are not listening because of the terrible signal it sends.
Stephanopoulos: You’re saying that censure resolution weakens America abroad?
Frist: Yes. Well, I think it does because we are right now in a war, in an unprecedented war, where we do have people who really want to take us down and we think back to 9/11 and that war on terror is out there. So the signal that it sends that there is in any way a lack of support for our Commander in Chief, who is leading us with a bold vision in a way that we know is making our homeland safer is wrong.
Got it. Criticizing Bush, or undermining his support by highlighting the president’s legally dubious conduct, is necessarily helpful to America’s enemies. It’s the GOP’s favorite trump card: when they can’t defend Bush’s behavior, they insist it’s borderline treasonous to even raise the question.
Regardless, Feingold’s bold move should make for an interesting political story. Will other Senate Dems co-sponsor the censure resolution? Will the controversy help reignite debate over warrantless searches? How aggressively will the GOP smear machine go after Feingold?
On a related note, ReddHedd seems to have a good idea.
Russ Feingold really stuck his neck out today, and it would be great if he — and every other Senator — knew that we had his back. It’s a gutsy move, not without risk in the polarized environment that is Washington these days and with the hatchet squad that Rove and his ilk generally deploy when their actions are questioned, so you have to hand it to Sen. Feingold for having the guts to raise the censure issue — not just in the privacy of his office or at home, but right there on national television for all the world to hear.
So, what am I asking you to do? Something small by comparison, but if enough of us do this, it could start a little snowball rolling down the hill. By the time it reaches bottom, who knows how big it will have gotten — but I sure like the sound of the word avalanche, so I say we get it going.
Your action steps: call both your Senators first thing in the morning and ask if they support Russ Feingold’s censure proposal. If they don’t, ask what their position is on the issue — and why.
The more people we have calling, the more staffers in the offices start to realize that Feingold struck a political chord with a bunch of us in America. And then the more we continue to call, the more that message starts to sink in…and then some. Plus, it forces Senators to go on the record one way or the other, which is useful information for all of us to have.
I suspect Republicans believe that they can control the discussion by labeling the very idea of censure as unpatriotic. The more lawmakers realize that a sizable number of Americans see official public admonishment as a reasonable response to the president’s behavior, the more Dems can push back against the demagoguery.