Decision ‘08

It’s Not a Political Stunt

Feingold on his fellow Democrats, who want no part of his ‘censure’ legislation:

I’m amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president’s numbers so low.

The numbers so low? What do numbers have to do with it? It’s not a stunt, is it? I mean, it’s the principle of the thing, right, Russ?…Russ?…

Hmmm…wonder where Russ went…

19 Responses to “It’s Not a Political Stunt”

1 M.A. Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Huh? His point is pretty simple: The Democrats should not be afraid to stand up to a very unpopular President.

The only defence Bush has advanced for his lawbreaking is that he is doing it to “protect Americans” (as if the constitution allows him to break any law he wants if he thinks he’s “protecting” somebody). But the public has mostly lost faith in Bush’s ability to protect anybody and anything. So why should a politician be afraid of pointing out, on the record, that Bush broke the law?

And there’s an implicit comparison to the Republicans in the ’90s: they impeached — not censured, but impeached — a very popular President, and paid very little political price for it (they lost a few seats in 1998, but kept their majorities). So why should the Democrats fear that they would pay a price for voting to censure a very unpopular president for lawbreaking far more blatant and heinous than Clinton’s?
2 Mark Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Well, M.A., I guess I’m naive to think that people wouldn’t be concerned about the president’s popularity level when they consider votes to censure him…but it would be nice if it were so…
3 M.A. Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
Well, you have to admit that a big factor in Republicans voting against Bush on other issues lately (and even Democrats) has to do with his unpopularity. When he was popular, in the year following 9/11, he got his way from his party and even for the most part from Democrats. It’s a sad fact of political life that many politicians need a President to be unpopular before they can stand up to him.

Of course, that doesn’t apply to Feingold, who voted against the original Patriot Act at a time when Bush was very popular. So I don’t think he can be accused of reading the polls to see what he’ll do. But it makes sense for him to say to his politics-playing brethren, come on, Bush is unpopular, don’t be afraid of him.
4 Ryan Bonneville Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
I’m with M.A. on the interpretation of the quote. I’m pretty sure that what Feingold is saying is, “I’m amazed Democrats aren’t doing (what I think is) the right thing, because the President is hardly popular enough to punish them for speaking their minds.”

Right?
5 Muffin the Cat Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
M.A.

The President broke the law? When did this event happen and when was he convicted? I though he was innocent until proven guilty? The jury is still out on whether or not his actions are Constitutional. I am assuming from your comment that you are on the left side of the political spectrum. Most of the people I talk to feel Mr. Bush was well within his rights on this issue and has acted correctly and legally.

If the Democrats feel Mr. Bush is guilty of a crime, impeach him in the House and convict him in the Senate. If his guilt is so blatant, then there should be no problem obtaining the votes. Remember one of the reasons Nixon resigned was because the Republicans were going to vote to impeach and convict.

Since the Democrats are running the other way on this issue, it is amounting to no more than a political stunt to discredit Mr. Bush and to allow Senator Feingold some free press. If they do not have the votes to censure Mr. Bush, I doubt they have the ability to impeach and convict. Please go tell Representative Conyers this information. He is trying to push a dead dog uphill. This is nothing but bovine scatology.
6 Shawn Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
If it wasn’t a political stunt, Feingold would be criticizing the Democrats for not standing up to a criminal President. At least, that’s what I think would be the right ack.

I mean, who cares how popular the man is? If he broke the law, he broke the law, and that’s what this entire episode is supposibly about.
7 peter Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
I think he is criticizing the Democrats, at least implicitly…
8 Mark Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
There are three reasons (well, maybe more) that Democrats wouldn’t support Feingold’s legislation:

(1) They’re scared of Bush.

(2) They’re scared of the voters’ reactions.

(3) They genuinely think it’s a bad idea.

2 is the most likely, 3 is the case for some of them - but number 1, Feingold’s choice, comes in a distant third…
9 peter Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Or option four: the Bush presidency is self-destructing – it seems that every week there is a new scandal (today’s scandal du jour being alleged shoplifting) and every week the approval ratings slip another point or two – so a wise strategy would be to keep your mouth shut and let your opponent do the work for you. Censuring or impeaching Bush would give the GOP a sideshow to distract attention from the third anniversary of the Iraqi invasion, the deficit, FEMA, and every other failure of the administration. Sometimes you win with a knockout, and sometimes you win with rope-a-dope…
10 Aaron Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
There’s a new “scandal” every week because the scandal that the democrats invented the week before doesn’t stick.
11 dmac Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
You contradict you own conclusions here. The majority of the public wants to hear about the Dem’s plans for the future, not about how awful they think the President is at the present. Attacking a lame - duck president during wartime has never proven to be a winning strategy, and if his opponents insist on acting like Lilliputians that shriek on a daily basis about the “scandal du jour,” it only lessens the effects that actual constructive criticism may have on the populace as a whole.

And if they don’t impeach or censure him after all this constant caterwauling, then it just looks like they lack the courage of their convictions here, of which they obviously have none.
12 peter Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
No, there is a scandal every week because the Bush administration is feckless – the Democrats didn’t invent Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, the Libby indictment, the deficit, violating FISA, the mosque bombing, the failure to find WMD, the inability to confront Iran, the flaccid response to Katrina, the inability of Iraq to pump oil at pre-invasion levels, the inability to find Osama Bin Laden, or the disdain which the rest of the world feels towards us, to name a few.

A majority of Americans feel that the Bush administration is a “failure.” Bush’s approval rating is 33 points less than Clinton’s at the time of his impeachment. If you average the approval ratings of Bush and Cheney, you have a lower rating than any President at any time since these polls started. If you think that this is the result of scandals manufactured by Democrats, think again.
13 Mark Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
Yeah, peter, but other than that, how do you feel about the President’s performance?…
14 peter Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Dmac: I agree completely – the Democrats will have a more difficult time winning if they run as the anti-Bush party (although with things the way they are, the “throw the bums out” mentality might be enough to elect Pee Wee Herman to the Oval Office). I don’t think that they necessarily have to run on ideology – a platform of returning competence to government might do the trick. Fiscal responsibility, responsive government, a centrist foreign policy.

All of this will (hopefully) come in due time, when the party coalesces around a candidate. Commentators were shocked when the Democrats more or less sang from the same song book in 2004. In 2008, the Dems should carry Ohio and a whole lot more.
15 peter Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
Mark: I never felt this way about Bush I or Reagan, both of whom I respect — I call it as I see it, and in my opinion, Bush II and Cheney are off the charts awful.

At least we agree about Bruce Springsteen…
16 Aaron Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
By “invent” I meant “blow out of proportion.” Not finding WMDs in Iraq is a prime example of this. It was not an administration scandal, but an illustration of the way intelligence gathering works. The Democrats turned it into a scandal because they’d rather see America fail than see Bush succeed.

Abu Ghraib is another example of this. The Democrats tried to connect the abuse committed by a couple of low-ranking soldiers directly to the White House through the authorization of harsh interrogation tactics at GITMO.

They also blew GITMO out of proportion. The interrogation tactics are in no way terror; the harshest treatment the detainees has been done by the detainees themselves, who are intentionally trying to starve themselves to death. This “scandal” didn’t really work out either as most Americans aren’t bothered by the thought of scantily-clad women flirting with terrorists.

Vice-president Cheney’s hunting accident is another example. The Democrats blew it out of proportion because most people didn’t really mind their previous scandal, the wire-tapping of Al Qaeda suspects.
17 peter Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
Invading a country on a false premise is a big deal. It is a scandal both because of the way intelligence was cherry-picked to support a pre-determined solution and because faulty and obsolete intelligence was sold to the American public as the unvarnished truth. When the VP says that “quite simply, we know there are WMD in Iraq” and there are not, that is a scanda.

Torturing prisoners is a scandal. Prima facie. The responsibility lies up the entire chain of command to Rumsfeld and Bush.

We do not know what happens at GITMO. The administration will not let the UN or anyone else interview the prisoners alone. It is a scandal when the President decides that he has the power to detain anyone, anywhere, and hold them indefinitely without charging them with anything. Also prima facie.

It is not a scandal when the VP shoots his friend in a hunting accident. The President and VP supposedly set the moral example for the country (as we were endlessly told during the Clinton impeachment). It is a scandal when the example which is set is that a) you don’t inform the authorities until twelve hours after the event, when any traces of alcohol can leave your system, b) you don’t accompany your friend to the hospital after you shot him in the face, and c) you dispatch surrogates to suggest that it was really Whittington’s fault that he was shot.
18 topsecretk9 Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
Well, you have to admit that a big factor in Republicans voting against Bush on other issues lately (and even Democrats) has to do with his unpopularity.

Yes, exactly right. That’s is why so many Dem lawmakers tripped over themselves to support Feingold!
19 Con George-Kotzabasis Says:
March 15th, 2006 at 1:39 am
Feingold is indeed a stout-hearted politician when he is prepared to have his stoush “with…numbers so low”.

One is reminded of the Roman general Fabius, who used caution and delay before he attacked an enemy. Likewise, it seems, Feingold was in wait of those low numbers before he unfurled his banner of principles for his censure motion.

As for voting against the Patriot Act, that was an outcome of egregious political naivety and blindness not to be able to perceive the great danger that America faced, and faces, from a lethal internal enemy.

Both his stand against the Patriot Act and his censure motion ( I agree with Mark’s third reason) are the offspring of political innocence and have nothing to do with principles.

http://congeorgekotzabasis.blogspot.com