Feingold to call for rare presidential censure

[Neil D]

PREVIOUS CENSURE

The Senate has censured a president only once -- in 1834, when an anti-administration coalition demanded that President Andrew Jackson produce a document having to do with his veto of a bill to recharter the Bank of the United States.

The body voted 26-20 to censure Jackson when he refused to provide the document to the Senate. The censure was "expunged" from the record in 1837 by a Senate again in the hands of Jacksonian Democrats.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- 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.

"The American people are solidly behind this president in conducting the war on terror."

Sen. John Warner, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, noted Feingold's presidential aspirations, and criticized his move as "political grandstanding."

The grand stand

[Bravus]

Darn convenient, that eternal war doctrine: means there will *never* be an appropriate time to challenge anything the administration does. The president breaks the law, and when found out vows to continue breaking the law, and the opposition party shouldn't question that? Feh, 1984 was just about 18 years early...

[Dr. Shane]

Problem with the conspiracy theory is that President Bush had briefed the Senate and House Intelligence committees and the minority leaders from both houses of Congress about the program. So the President was never "found out". What happened is someone leaked the story to the press. Congress had been informed, it was the media the Administration wasn't telling.

[Planey]

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Shane said:

What happened is someone leaked the story to the press. Congress had been informed, it was the media the Administration wasn't telling.

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Government by the people, for the people, etc.

Just as long as the people don't find out...

Graeme

[Dr. Shane]

It was the terrorists they didn't want to find out. How does the government tell the people but keep it from the terrorists?

[Bravus]

Actually, the group he briefed was much, much narrower and more hand-picked than that. From memory, 6 or so Republican senators.

[Bravus]

OK, my recollection was faulty: "The White House has said it informed congressional leaders about the NSA program in more than a dozen briefings, but has refused to provide further details. At a minimum, the briefings included the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees and the two ranking Democrats, known collectively as the "Gang of Four," according to various sources."

Sorry about that.

The point, though, was that the government is required to get warrants, which it can do secretly and even retrospectively, and chose not to do so. That is an illegal action. As pointed out in the thread-starting story, even if you think there are justifications, the President is the highest officer of the law, and must uphold the law, and seek changes through the appropriate avenues. A choice on the part of the President to intentionally break the law is simply illegal.

[Dr. Shane]

I agree that warrents should have been sought. BUT the President briefed these Congressional leaders and none of them objected to him about the program. No objections came about until the story leaked to the media.

Now that sounds a little fishy.

[Dr. Shane]

For those that don't like FOXNews... The strongest arguements I have heard for the need for warrents, I have heard on FOXNews. Of course I haven't heard anyone calling for impeachment but I don't watch it 24/7 either. But I do listen to NPR and watch Jim Lerher on PBS.

[Ron Lambert]

I don't think they'll get anywhere with the wiretapping issue. Too many people feel it was warranted.

If they wanted to censure the president over the Dubai deal involving U.S. ports, that might succeed, since both parties think it was a dumb idea, and even more incredible that the decision never was referred to the president by his underlings. But since Dubai has withdrawn from the deal, the point is moot.

[Derrell M]

In politics it seems that a person must demonstrate their leadership prowess by finding a popular battle to fight. The act of choosing ones battles is a gamble, and it would appear that Russ Feingold chose poorly this time. Perhaps next time he'll find one that has some support for the action he proposes.

[Bravus]

Well, maybe. He must have known all along that it wouldn't be successful in a Republican-controlled House/Senate, but... we're talking about him.

[David Koot]

I tend to think that Feingold would not reasonably expect to prevail. However, he may see value in placing the issue before the public. Thinking back to the 70's, is there really much qualitative difference between what Nixon did, and this president?

[Derrell M]

Even among the Democrats Feingold's support base is quite thin on this matter, but you are right, Bravus, we are talking about him.

Nixon spied on his political opponent's communications with each other for the purpose of acquiring information useful in winning domestic political battles. Bush is spying on communications between foreign terror suspects and people in the USA for the purpose of acquiring information useful in stopping further terror attacks on U.S. soil. It seems to me that the qualitative difference reflected there is rather significant in that Nixon did it for his party, and Bush is doing it for his country. Also, unchallenged precedent lends credibility and whereas Nixon didn't have that, every president back through Carter has done what Bush is doing and they were not challenged in this manner.

[Dr. Shane]

Feingold Draws Little Support for Censure

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Democrats distanced themselves Monday from Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold's effort to censure President Bush over domestic spying, preventing a floor vote that could alienate swing voters.

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Even as he spoke, Democratic leaders held off the immediate vote that Majority Leader Bill Frist requested. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he didn't know if there ever would be one. Durbin said that Feingold had sought to use the censure resolution "as a catalyst" for thorough hearings and investigations.

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[Bravus]

Yep, Frist's manouver worked: push for an immediate vote. The Dems didn't want an immediate vote, largely because they want to wait for an investigation, so they lose this round... but there's more to come on this story yet.