Slippery support for censure

March 20, 2006

Following up on last week’s ARG poll that showed surprisingly strong support for Bush being censured, Newsweek conducted a similar poll gauging the public’s attitudes on the issue.

The outright anger against Bush felt by many Americans was reflected in responses to questions about the effort of Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to censure Bush in Congress for his warrantless wiretapping program. Feingold has found very little support for his move on the Hill. Four in 10 (42 percent) of the adults in the general public say they would support Congressional censure of the president, while half (50 percent) say they would not. Censure wins majority support from Democrats (60 percent) and one in five Republicans (20 percent) say they’d support it.

These numbers are not terribly dissimilar to the ARG data. ARG found that 46% of Americans approve congressional censure, while Newsweek said 42% endorse the idea. It suggests, at a minimum, that the proposal at least garners very significant national support, and isn’t nearly as off-the-wall as congressional Republicans would have the public believe.

But I have a follow-up question. According to the two polls, about two-in-three Dems support censure, and about one-in-four Republicans do too. Frankly, the Dem number strikes me as a little low, and the GOP number a little high. Isn’t it likely that both groups of voters are considering the merit of a censure resolution as an impeachment alternative?

During the Clinton impeachment fracas, censure was viewed as a lesser punishment that would formally scold the president without removing him from office. With the Feingold resolution, it’s more or less the opposite — some Dems are advocating censure because there isn’t enough support for impeachment in a Republican Congress.

In this sense, the polls aren’t entirely helpful in telling us whether, and to what extent, the public wants to see the president punished for circumventing the law and conducting warrantless domestic surveillance. Dems may withhold support for censure in the polls because they see it as a slap on the wrist and want something harsher, whereas Republicans may support censure because they don’t want anything harsher.

In this sense, the better poll question would be, “Some have criticized the president for his warrantless wiretapping program. Do you believe Bush should be punished for the program? If so, how?”

Post Script: For what it’s worth, the Newsweek poll had some additional numbers that are noteworthy, including Bush’s 36% approval rating (tied for the lowest of his presidency), only 29% of Americans approve of Bush’s handling of Iraq, and registered voters continue to prefer Democratic candidates for Congress over GOP candidates by a margin of 50% to 39%.

Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn) was on Sunday Meet the Press saying that he could not support censure until he knew more about Hayden’s NSA spying program and how or if it violated FISA. It’s amazing that you can’t get a solid answer out of most of these politicians. The Congressional Research Service did an analysis of FISA, discovered that it covers all foreign and “International” communications, and that spying without a warrant from the FISA court is illegal under FISA, and that FISA is constitutional. You’d think a congressman could accept that.

Censure Bush. Impeach Cheney!

  • When Bush said he had earned some political capital and intended to spend it, I figured he meant he would end up with zero support when he left office in 2009. I forgot to account for how Bush spends, which is to say uncontrollably. With some real luck the Democrats will manage to win a majority in both houses on an Impeach Him platform and throw him and Cheney both out of office in 2007, and replace him with Speaker Murtha 🙂

    Ah, wishful thinking.

  • CB,

    I think you’re right, but I’d also mention that people’s responses will probably depend on how much they now about possible options. Your hypothetical question should include a subquestion that offers a brief description of censure and impeachment, asking the respondents if they’d prefer either of those options, as well as an “other” option.

  • Well, in the earlier ARG poll even fewer supported
    impeachment, compared to that for censure,
    so I don’t think that theory holds, at least for the
    Dems. I don’t think the public is aware of just
    how bad this administration is. And how could
    they be? They’re not political aficionados, and
    the MSM and press have been bending over
    backwards to prop this clown up. As a matter
    of fact, I don’t think the political experts understand
    this phenomenon. They can’t grasp the enormity
    of it. There is a fraud, an outright fraud, in the
    White House, and nothing like it has happened
    in recent history. The man is simply not capable,
    intellectually, morally or emotionally of handling
    a responsible job, to say nothing of the presidency.
    Nobody wants to believe it. How could that happen
    here?

    All that to explain the rather muted enthusiasm for
    harsh remedies for this failed presidency.

  • “How could that happen here?” – hark

    The Republicans lost control of their nominating process to the Texas mafia of course. They were so pissed at Clinton governing successfully for eight years, triangluating and stealing their thunder on welfare and other issues, fighting successful wars (Kosovo, anyone?) that they were frankly despirate.

    And McCain was just a little too righteous for some of the Washington establishment, that wanted to be (in George Will’s words) Rhetorical Conservatives and Practical Liberals (not that I would consider their bridges to no-way liberalism).

    What I really would like to know, seven years later, is whether it was Barbara or George H.W. that decided that George W. would get to run for the White House and not Jeb.

  • I’ll openly admit it – I still don’t know what censure actually is. What does it mean?

  • I think in this context censure means that the Senate passes a resolution saying that the president broke the law. The censure resolution includes a reprimand for his having done so. It’s basically the Senate getting it on the record that they think the President was off-sides.

  • the censure idea is an interesing one.

    impeachment would be incorrect, under the Constitution.
    The President violated FISA, clearly. http://pressthenews.com/2006/03/18/media-balance-and-the-warrantless-wiretap-authorization.aspx

    but it does not seem to rise to a level of high crime or misdemeanor.

    the more troubling aspect is the presentation of facts on this issue (the above link illustrated both this and the underlying issue)..

    while those visiting this site may be among the better read, a large portion of the country is not very familiar with the actual facts, what fisa says, what article II of the constitution says, etc.

    few know that fisa had a war time provision,that fisa was amended by the patriot act of 2001, that fisa allowed for a warrant to be obtained, in cases of need, for up to three days after the covert action, that fisa expressly and clearly prohibited what the nsa program authorized, (making it a serious crime), or that article II does not even imply that the president, as commander in chief, can act in direct contravention of a specific and consitutionally valid law simply because he disagrees with it. that this particular law protected americans from unchecked power, and that it was violated clandestinely, while keeping most of Congress even in the dark, should raise serious discussion of the issue.

    that said, if one listens to the media on this issue, there are “two” sides to it. yes, if one side is the facts, and the other side is an adminstration’s (and those who will support the administration’s contentions no matter what) ridiculous legal arguments, that are just complex enough to throw off a good portion of the country not immersed in the facts,and that the administration pretty much has no choice but to make in light of the circumstances, even if was not an administration that normally shirked from accountability.

    does “censure” help get this accross, and serve to discourage the future clandestine expansion of power or blatant violation fo the separation of powers clause? Will it help educate Americans on the matter?

    Im not sure of either, though possibly the former to some extent, and on the latter it may indicate some level of gravity. the real travesty was the highly partisan action by the senate judiciary committee to simply drop the investigation into the matter. given the above facts, and that there was absolutely no check upon the governments spying, this was not consistent with our constitution, our founding father vision, or a free democracy.

    Im not sure that link above worked, but there are a few articles regarding this (as well as one regarding the charged rhetoric of the republican leadership in resonse to feingold’s call for censure) at http://www.pressthenews.com

  • “but it does not seem to rise to a level of high crime or misdemeanor.” – Ivan Carter

    Okay, let us try again.

    The presidential oath is “to defend and protect the Constitution”…

    …note, not the American People.

    The bill of rights was promised to the several states by the framers of the constitution because they would not accept the constitution until there was a bill of rights.

    The fourth amendment was written from the experience of the British Executive power conducting warrantless searches DURING A TIME OF WAR!

    The fourth amendment was written after Article II (the Executive Branch) to constrain the executive branch and make the constitution acceptable to the several states.

    Therefore, Mr. Cheney, the President does not have the right to conduct warrantless searches based on his Article II powers as commander in chief (George III was a commander in chief, kiddos).

    Therefore the President has violated both law (FISA) and constitution and he had plenty of advice that he was do so (John Ashcroft, for instance).

    And we are not at WAR because the Congress has not declared one.

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