quote: A top Democratic senator said Sunday he plans to introduce Monday a resolution calling for President Bush to be censured for his domestic wiretapping program.
Sen. Russ Feingold, a potential presidential candidate, told ABC's "This Week" Sunday that the resolution would not preempt discussions about changing a 1978 law governing a special court set up to approve wiretaps.
"It's an unusual step," he said. "It's a big step, but what the president did by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping has to be answered.
"There can be debate about whether the law should be changed. There can be debate about how best to fight terrorism. We all believe that there should be wiretapping in appropriate cases -- but the idea that the president can just make up a law, in violation of his oath of office, has to be answered."
Feingold, a member of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees, said he is doubtful any Republican senators will join him in trying to reprimand the president.
Only one president, Andrew Jackson, has ever been censured.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, also speaking on ABC, said Feingold "is just wrong."
"He is flat wrong, he is dead wrong," said the Tennessee Republican -- also a potential presidential candidate in 2008 -- adding that "attacking our commander in chief ... doesn't make sense."
"We are right now at an unprecedented war where they really want to take us down," he said. "A censure resolution ... is wrong. It sends a signal around the world.
I don't know enough about the wiretaps themselves to discuss the merits of the censure. I do know that Frist's response unnerves me. OSC, every now and again, trots out the same argument, that we must stand behind the administration because we are at a time of war, and we can't send mixed signals to our soldiers or to the enemy.
First off, this argument only works for conservatives because its a family argument, it's that clannish mentality used by patriarchs to excuse their sins and the sins of their family from public shame.
But Bush isn't my father. I don't have to stand by him out of principle. He is the guy elected to do a job in a democracy of free and equal citizens, and when he over steps his mandate, it is our job to say say so, or at least raise the question.
I do not want to see a government official try to kill debate, in the deliberative branch of this government because it may make the troops feel bad. These are serious and complicated and often unresolvable issues and democracy is sometimes slow and recalcitrant, and this is a lesson I had to learn first hand, but it is the system we have, inefficient and unruly as it is, and when the President or even other Senators are casual about senate deliberation, it constitutes a dereliction of duty.
This is not a police state. It's the Senator's job to check the authority of the commander in chief.
posted
Agreed, Irami. If this is what Frist said, then I (as a Republican) take issue with it. I'd like to see the quote without the edits first, though.
I do, however, think that now's not the time to jump anyone for political points. Then again, I don't think that's ever appropriate. Just less appropriate now.
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The issue isn't whether Feingold's censure is an appropriate penalty for the President. The issue is Frist calling Feingold's patriotism into question for introducing the bill for deliberation.Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:First off, this argument only works for conservatives because its a family argument, it's that clannish mentality used by patriarchs to excuse their sins and the sins of their family from public shame.
Whence These Flowers??? Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Calling for solidarity and presenting a unified front, even amid serious countervailing evidence, wreaks of the family ethos.
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quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Calling for solidarity and presenting a unified front, even amid serious countervailing evidence, wreaks of the family ethos.
I don't see how.
I suspect that "family ethos" must mean something completely different to you than to me.
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I don't think I've ever heard the terms "family buisness" or "keep it in the family" seriously used in that way outside of fiction. I'm having to stretch my brain to consider that it might actually be prevalent. I'm skeptical.
It certainly has nothing to do with my view of the family.
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It's morre like a mafia family than a healthy family. A healthy family would recognize that it has problems and do something about it. Whereas the mafia would keep everything secret including having to wack a person.
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If Frist has a problem with the President's wiretaps, I'm sure that he, and the rest of the republicans will address them off record. Frist was getting on Feingold's case about making the debate formal and public. Such a position may be appropriate for a family, but democracy is public business. That means it has to be known to even people who don't like or agree with us. That means a public debate and a public call for censure.
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MPH, you've never been in the same family as a criminal, insane, or poor relative? The distinction between public and private gets really complicated in those situations.
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A part of me wonders if the President gets the same "We're at war" speech. Sort of like "For Pete's sake, we're at war Mr. President. Stop screwing up and stop pissing half the country off. We need to be united right now and you're pushing people apart." Sadly, I doubt that this is the case.
This is one of the reasons why Iv'e always been a "character" voter in Presidential elections. Character is the difference between someone who thinks unification means everyone has to follow them and is not allowed to criticize and one who tries to get everyone on his team, perhaps by toning down the more controversial things on his agenda and treating openly with people on things that can be open so that when he needs to say "You have to trust me." people have good reasons to do so and, if they screw up, owning their mistakes and then moving on.
quote:MPH, you've never been in the same family as a criminal, insane, or poor relative? The distinction between public and private gets really complicated in those situations.
I've had criminal, suicidal, and poor relatives, and things never got complicated in that way.
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I agree more with Carl Levin, who said he doesn't at this time support Feingold's censure, but would thinks the debate on the issue should continue, and who also thinks the issue should really be pushed back until the wiretap thing has been fully investigated. Can't really censure the man until we know the full extent, or lack thereof, of what he did.
As for First, is anyone really surprised? Republicans play the whole "unity" card whenever anyone tries to attack the president, and they've been doing it for five years, regardless of what the specific subject is, and how valid the argument is, they flail that thing about like a drunk waving a broken bottle in a bar fight.
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This unity thing doesn't work though. i think that George W. Bush's policies, many of them make the entire Republican party look bad, which could hurt their chances next year for reelection if it keeps up... And yet, the Democrats are such wimps.
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What was the line? "The Republican Party is a party of bad ideas, and the Democratic Party is a party of no ideas."
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