Update [2006-3-23 8:47:5 by howieinseattle]: Matt Stoller says this in
“Mattering on Censure”—
I’ve been in and out of meetings and the gist of what I hear is that the conventional wisdom on censure is moveable. Senators were stunned and angry that Feingold didn’t tell them what he was going to do (and that he called them spineless), but they are moving to the need for a strong investigation. This is still not enough. Glenn Greenwald has a post on this. The President broke the law, and the Republicans are scurrying away from warrantless wiretapping as quickly as they can. Now, the extent to which he broke the law isn’t clear, because there has been no investigation (the GOP is stonewalling that, of course). But that he broke the law is clear, and a censure would demonstrate clearly that the Senate takes its oversight role seriously. And a censure does not preclude an investigation.
Jane has a way for us to make an impact on this. Show up. It’s recess week and Senators are at home. You can make a difference here.”
Stoller quotes Jane Hamsher, who says showing up in person will add to the messages they are receiving in support of censure and will demonstrate that we are not “just keyboard phantoms spamming them with email.”
“Anybody who didn’t see Russ Feingold on the Daily Show tonight needs to do so (Crooks & Liars has the video.) He truly comes off as a man who has the confidence of knowing he did the right thing when everyone around him was doing the Bob Shrum shuffle into the center, standing up for what he believed in while others were too preoccupied with calculating their own political futures to bother.”-from the post on Firedoglake.
And here’s a blurb from the AP story in The La Crosse Tribune(WI) :
““A lot of your Democratic colleagues are reacting as though you’re Jack Abramoff and you have a casino you want to talk to them about,” Stewart joked, referring to the disgraced lobbyist.
Feingold, who has accused his Democratic colleagues of “cowering,” said it was important for the party to show some backbone.
“How many times are we going let George Bush and (Vice President) Dick Cheney say, ’You guys don’t support the troops. You’re not patriotic,’ and let them push us around?” asked Feingold, whose appearance was via satellite from Milwaukee. “We have to stand up to them.”
Stewart played a clip from a recent news conference of House Majority Leader John Boehner, in which the Ohio Republican said of Feingold, “Sometimes you begin to wonder if he’s more interested in the safety and security of the terrorists as opposed to the American people.”
After the audience groaned, Stewart asked, “How long have you been working with the terrorists, and are they nicer than they seem?”
“Oh no, they’re a bad bunch,” Feingold said, laughing.
Feingold conceded that a member of his own family questioned the proposal.
“My daughter called me up and said, ’Dad, what are you doing? This thing hasn’t been done since the 1830s,’ so it takes some explaining,” Feingold said.
“That’s what I like about you, senator,” Stewart said. “You’re kicking it old-school.”