Just how much does Linc Chafee dislike Bush?

March 16, 2006

When Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) announced before the 2004 election that he would not vote for Bush-Cheney, we got a sense that Rhode Island’s junior senator isn’t the president’s biggest fan. But would Chafee, up for re-election in a very “blue” state, actually support Russ Feingold’s censure resolution? It’s at least possible.

Early yesterday, Chafee offered some praise for Feingold, saying the resolution would be “positive” if it fueled debate over the legality of some policies in the war on terrorism. But according to the Providence Journal, Chafee’s home-town newspaper, the Republican senator won’t rule out voting for the measure on the Senate floor.

Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, who cast a protest vote against President Bush’s reelection in 2004, says he won’t rule out support for what he calls the “drastic” penalty of a formal Senate censure of Mr. Bush.

Chafee agrees with Sen. Russell D. Feingold that the president acted illegally when he launched an antiterrorism program of warrantless wiretaps of some U.S. citizens, he said Tuesday. But Chafee, a Republican, currently does not support the Wisconsin Democrat’s proposal to punish the president with a censure, he said.

“Everything should occur in steps,” Chafee said in an interview citing, for instance, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on the wiretapping program.

Asked directly whether he’d support a censure resolution, Chafee demurred. “I know you want me to go there,” Chafee said, but he did not answer the question directly. The paper added, however that “Chafee said he does not rule out an eventual decision to back the censure resolution.”

I wonder how many phone calls Chafee is going to receive today from the White House and the congressional GOP leaders. For that matter, I wonder how many of Chafee’s constituents may call, urging him in the other direction. And how this might affect his GOP primary fight is anyone’s guess.

It’s not likely, but wouldn’t it be an encouraging Dem talking point if the party could say there’s “bi-partisan” support for a presidential censure?

Post Script: For the record, here’s what Chafee said yesterday morning, when he praised the resolution as a “positive” move.

“At least it’s accomplishing getting it into the public awareness. Because nobody, in Rhode Island anyway, is talking about the issue. And I think that’s positive. The American public — if they’re going to make a decision to allow illegal activity because we’re in a war on terror, then I think that’s an important debate we should be having.”

Chafee equivocated a little after the comments were published, but his comments are clearly complementary.

March 16, 2006 at 10:48 am

For goodness sake, now the Democrats have cover! It’s a bi-partisan issue and they need to get off their asses and do this thing already

“At least it’s accomplishing getting it into the public awareness. Because nobody, in Rhode Island anyway, is talking about the issue. And I think that’s positive. The American public — if they’re going to make a decision to allow illegal activity because we’re in a war on terror, then I think that’s an important debate we should be having.”

Don’t you wish that every Democratic Senator asked about the censure would have issued a similar statement?

You’d think the Republicans thought Censure was something real. All it is is words, no substance.

Oh, right, I forgot!

All the Republicans know is words with no substance 😉

I still think this censure motion is self-indulgent and self-defeating political idiocy (see my comment in the thread last night) arising more from our (fully justified) emotional rage than from any substantial political thought.

But if Chafee gets on board, and loses his primary as a result, we pick up a Senate seat. He might win in November, but the rabid righty running against him in midnight-Blue RI surely won’t.

Nah. Not with Russ Feingold doing it. Ted Kennedy? I’d say sure, emotional rage. Russ is too pragmatic and smart.

“… if it fueled debate over the legality of some policies in the war on terrorism.”

How could it not? Why don’t the damned Democrats sense this?

With respect, Dave G., Feingold–whom I admire more than anyone else in public life–is running for President. He’s probably thinking that the way to stop the Clintonstein Monster is to run at her left. This is a pretty good way to advance that strategy.

I just worry, per what I said in last night’s thread, that this is sucking away a lot of oxygen we’re better off seeing expended on the serial failures of the Bush regime and their congressional butt-smoochers.

and dajafi, i might agree with you (and others) on here who have offered that pragmatic critique if I really thought that, but for Feingold’s move, the Dems on the Hill would be doing something more useful and constructive. History, however, shows they are likely using Feingold as an excuse for doing the same nothing they would have done anyway: “well, we would be standing up the President in an articulate, organized, effective, unified, progressive way, but now that glory-monger Feingold went and messed it up, so we may as well not try and just pout instead.”

whether Feingold’s strategy is sound or not, the notion that he interfered with a better strategy is hard to believe coming from the bunch of clowns who have not managed to score big on a single Rethug error yet (the R’s are much better at harming themselves than the D’s are at harming them). this group couldn’t effectively use two Supreme Court nomination hearings when they had years to prepare, why should I believe they have their act together now but for Feingold?

at this point, I applaud any of them actually willing to take some action. the rest of them can go back to meeting behind closed doors trying to word the 2006 “Platform” document that remains a work in delayed progress.

Would it be too cynical to wonder if Chafee uses this tactic mostly when he wants to improve his poll numbers and get more attention and support from the White House without really intending to do anything that could be construed as anti-Bush?

Just asking.

Can we trade Lieberman for Chafee? Can we can we can we?

I should have been clearer: you’re absolutely right that there’s no unified strategy at work, and given the proven idiocy of our Democratic “leaders” I doubt there will be. It’s not that Feingold is getting in the way of that at all.

But as Rob Corddry once noted on The Daily Show, “The facts themselves have an anti-Republican bias.” Even many Republican voters aren’t totally impervious to reality; they’re discouraged, and while I doubt many will vote Democratic, I could see many of them staying home and effectively allowing us to win. As you say, Zeitgeist, the Repubs have harmed themselves… and they’ve done it just by being themselves (e.g. incompetent, corrupt, and out of step with majority views on how to run the country). In the absence of the sort of irrational, emotional crap that saved them in ’02 and ’04, we’re looking good this year.

But the Rovians are still good at drumming up hysteria and demonizing “the enemy”–and Feingold’s motion gives them space to do that. Perhaps I should be glad that this is happening now, and not in mid-October, because the odds are it will be crowded off the plate by then. But my point is that he’s playing their game–regardless of how correct he is on the merits. As you know, we stink at playing their game; this year we need to make them play our game.

Chafee’s comments are always complimentary on stuff like this. He always hems and haws very publicly about how maybe, just possibly, in the fullness of time and with proper judicious consideration he might be willing to consider the possibility of not voting no.

Then in the end he follows the Republican party line. Every time. I don’t know why you people keep getting your hopes up.

I think you underestimate the American public. We elect our officials to uphold and protect the law, and don’t expect them to ‘lay down’ and take it when the executive branch runs ripshod over the law. I think if the majority of American’s finally see a Democratic Party that FIGHTS for what they believe in and not just try and out ‘move’ our counterparts, as if playing a game of chess, then more of our brother’s would rise up and actually vote. I really don’t see it playing into the Republican’s hands at all. Most American’s don’t believe what the President has done is right, if not illegal, and most do not want to fight terrorism at the expense of our freedom. These are American ideals, not just Democratic.

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