If the Republicans were really anxious to highlight the pure insanity of Sen. [tag]Russ Feingold[/tag]’s [tag]censure resolution[/tag], they shouldn’t have picked a Friday afternoon hearing. It was engaging political theater, but some of the actors didn’t show up.
The Senate Judiciary Committee opened a bitter if lopsided debate on Friday over whether Congress should [tag]censure[/tag] President Bush for his domestic eavesdropping program.
Although few Senate Democrats have embraced the censure proposal and almost no one expects the Senate to adopt it, the notion that Democrats may seek to punish Mr. Bush has become a rallying cause to partisans on both sides of the political divide. Republicans called the hearing to give the proposal a full airing as their party sought to use the threat of Democratic punishment of the president to rally their conservative base.
Five Republicans at the hearing took turns attacking the idea as a reckless stunt that could embolden terrorists. Just two Democrats showed up to defend it, arguing that Congress needed to rein in the White House’s expansive view of presidential power. The Democrats’ star witness was [tag]John W. Dean[/tag], the former counsel to President Richard M. Nixon who divulged many of the details in the Watergate scandal.
Dean was, indeed, the star. The former White House counsel, who served time in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal, was testifying before the Senate for the first time since the Watergate hearings more than 30 years ago. He made the best of the opportunity.
“This is a part of a very consistent, long-term, early announced policy of this presidency that they are seeking to build presidential power for the sake of presidential power,” Dean said.
Cornyn, noting that Dean was a “convicted felon,” said it “strikes me as very odd that the Judiciary Committee is giving” Dean an opportunity to market his latest book.
Dean said his new book wouldn’t be in stores until summer, adding mischievously that Cornyn would be in it.
Asked later to elaborate, Dean said: “I have a book coming out in July called `Conservatives Without Conscience.’ He happens to be mentioned in the book.”
Dean added that Bush’s conduct with warrantless searches was actually worse than Nixon’s during [tag]Watergate[/tag], arguing, “I appear today because I believe, with good reason, that the situation is even more serious.”
Republicans obviously aren’t prone to see the merit in censure or the benefits of the rule of law, but the hearings did produce one small bit of news: another Senate Dem appears ready to vote for the resolution.
…Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the panel’s senior Democrat, said he was “inclined to believe” that censure by Congress is appropriate for Bush.
“We know the president broke the law,” Leahy said. “Now we need to know why.”
Sounds reasonable.
In a broader sense, I’m glad the hearings were held, if for no other reason, that it lends the resolution credibility. Yesterday’s discussion suggests to the public that this is a serious issue, not some pie-in-the-sky stunt, and that earnest experts believe this is a subject worthy of exploration.
“If it is discussed in at all a reasonable way, that may add to its credibility,” Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan political analyst, said. “When you have presidential approval ratings this bad, you have a public that is not predisposed to rally to the president and not predisposed to reject the criticism.”
In other words, it seems to me that if Republicans hoped a Judiciary Committee hearing would expose the censure resolution as abject nonsense, I think the plan may have backfired.