Republicans release Ad that Mischaracterizes Feingold's Censure Resolution

[JI7]

similar to what the so called "lefist" sites are doing with the censure supporters for Pres Clinton.

and this is just as disgusting with the whole "Feingold is attacking Bush for going after terrorist" type crap. the chimp the poor little victim again.

<The GOP radio ad accuses Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin of proposing to censure President Bush "for pursuing suspected members of al Qaeda," which isn't true. Feingold has stated he supports wiretapping suspected terrorists. His measure would censure Bush for ordering wiretaps on US soil without a court warrant, for failing to notify all members of the Senate and House intelligence committees, and for "efforts to mislead the American people" about the legality of the program.>


http://somd.com/news/headlines/articles/3521.shtml

[sandnsea]

1. Here's the ad

Announcer: September 11th changed our country.
And it changed how America responds to terrorists.
President Bush is working to keep American families safe.
Passing the PATRIOT Act which has disrupted over one hundred and fifty terrorist threats and cells making sure the US is monitoring terrorist communications.
But some Democrats are working against these efforts to secure our country, opposing the PATRIOT Act and terrorist surveillance program.
Their leader is Russ Feingold.
Now Feingold and other Democrats want to censure the President. Publicly reprimanding President Bush for pursuing suspected members of al Qaeda.
Some Democrats are even calling for President Bush’s impeachment.
Is this how Democrats plan to win the War on Terror?
Call Russ Feingold and ask him why he’s more interested in censuring the President than protecting our freedom.
Paid for by the Republican National Committee not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee www.gop.com.
The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.

:puke:

Some of these lefty asshats might want to start fighting this ad instead of other Democrats.

[ProSense]

3. The fight should have been against the GOP from the beginning

They suck.


I hope it's beyond the point where people will buy this shit, but I'm not sure. If so this could work against them, especially given the situation in Iraq (I could be dreaming).

Ill-timed censure? Maybe. I just saw an article titled "Feingold Says He Favors Wiretapping Terrorists."

Channel 3000 - Mar 21 6:23 PM
BELLE PLAINE, Wis. -- U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold says he supports wiretapping every single person who's working with a terrorist. He says he just wants it done within the law.

We better have a stronger comeback than this. The GOP attacks every time a Democrat does anything. They've made a few ads targeting Kerry.

[Dr Ron]

2. Factcheck has response posted nt

[ProSense]

6. Are you kidding me?

This reads like an attack on Feingold and the Democrats.

Feingold and the PATRIOT Act

The radio ad says the PATRIOT Act "has disrupted over one hundred and fifty terrorist threats and cells," a claim that rests solely on statements from the Department of Justice and which hasn't been independently verified. The ad also says Feingold is leading Democrats in "opposing the PATRIOT Act and terrorist surveillance program."

The surveillance program is separate from the Patriot Act, however. It is true that Feingold has twice opposed enactment of the PATRIOT Act. In 2001, Feingold was the only Senator to vote against the original act and in 2006 he was one of ten Senators who voted against the bill that renewed the act with modifications. Feingold says on his website : "the Act contains many provisions that are needed to help protect our nation against terrorism," and says he voted against the act because "the bill went too far in allowing the government to obtain personal information about law-abiding Americans and in undermining constitutional rights and protections." As for the surveillance program, as we've noted, Feingold does oppose the nature of Bush's program but not surveillance of suspected terrorist.

Who is Calling for Impeachment?

The ad also says that "some Democrats are even calling for President Bush’s impeachment ." That's true, but there aren't many. Rep. John Conyers introduced a bill last December to create a select committee to "make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment." As of March 21, Conyers had attracted 31 additional sponsors.

Republicans hope to convince voters that Democrats intend to impeach the President if they gain control of Congress. Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said March 20 on CNN's Situation Room: "the talk originally came up from a number of different people, including John Conyers, a gentlemen who if the Democrats took control, would be the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. And what I think is important for people to understand is this is their agenda."

[karynnj]

7. OMG - They really aren't even trying for both sides

They ignore that Feingold did vote for last year's Senate version of the Patriot Act. It does show what he would get if he get in the general election. The surveillance program sentence needs the words " admittedly illegal" before nature.

This is worse than there supposed fairness in 2004 - where they would take an absolutely accurate Kerry statement and say something like he said N million dollars, but some estimate it was $N-1 million dollars. Paired with a Bush comment that made no sense or was totally untrue.

[ProSense]

4. Opinions are

like assholes:

Morton Kondracke: Democrats should declare censure move 'irresponsible'
By Morton Kondracke

Published 2:15 am PST Tuesday, March 21, 2006
The best thing that can be said about the call by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., to censure President Bush is that practically none of his colleagues is backing him up.

Democrats are not, as he charges, "cowering" in the face of possible Republican allegations that they are pro-terrorist. Rather, they don't want to distract attention from the main Democratic assaults on Bush and the GOP - that he's "incompetent" and that Republicans are in "disarray."

more...

http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14232720p-15054793c.html

It gets worse.

[Mass]

5. I cant believe the Democrats'silence (particularly in the Senate)

concerning the attacks on Feingold (starting with Allard).

This is simply disgusting (and not the first time it happens). Where are they? Why do they keep silent?

This is not the only thing I cant believe about them anyway.

Bush says that he is not responsible for bringing the troops home and all the Dems do is to say he is incompetent (with whatever qualifier they have in front). I think my limit of good will has been reached, by now.

[karynnj]

8. My guess is that the silence

concerning the attacks is partically because of how Feingold himself acted. By not even trying to get peer support than obnoxiously attacking everyone who within 2 days wasn't following, he likely lost a lot of support. They may also hope to shift the topic to investigations, which works to their advantage. Many have issued statements disagreeing with Feingold, but saying they understand his frustration.

The leadership was actually pretty supportive of Feingold before this. After he lost on the Patriot Act amendments, Reid took to the Senate floor to praise Feingold as brilliant, a fine legal scholar, principled etc. Clearly nicer than all the leaked mini-attacks on Kerry on the Alito filibuster.

Dean did defend him and sent out a letter defending him against Allard that thousands signed - it also referenced the attacks on Murtha and Reid. (Apparently the dirision directed at Kerry isn't worth the DNC's condemnation.)

On the troops comment - I agree with you. There should have been more statements. I heard one from Reid who referenced the Senate resolution that 2006 be a transistional year. I really wonder where Kerry is.

[ProSense]

9. I suspect that if a few Democrats

don't agree with this censure move, it's best that they not make a statement. We know what the Republicans are saying. I would much prefer a response to the Republicans from a few Democrats or even the DNC, than a statement on whether or not they support censure.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-greenwald/mythmaking-and-excusema_b_17689.html

[TayTay]

10. Well of course they did.

They can't very well tell the truth about it, as it would make them look bad. Seriously, if the Rethugs were all hit with Cherry-flavored, Extreme Truth Serum, this is what their ad would say: (Additional comments in italics )

Announcer: September 11th changed our country. And it changed how America responds to terrorists. And it gave us a lovely new coloring scheme for showing which days were terrorist-light and which days were terrorist-heavy so we could plan a wardrobe with ot without gas masks and duct tape. Nobody ever remembers to thank us for this. It sometimes gets us down.

President Bush is working to keep American families safe. Sort of. If you discount all those people made homeless and jobless by Katrina. But they don't count because they deserved it and a lot of them are minorities. So, we can really just ignore them and go back to worrying about The Haves and The Have Mores. Like America should.

Passing the PATRIOT Act which has disrupted over one hundred and fifty terrorist threats and cells making sure the US is monitoring terrorist communications. And we don't have to actually tell you which operations that we conducted actually resulted in terrorist convictions, cuz, ahm, that would show we made the numbers up. We could have claimed 200 threats, but it seemed a bit overdone, so we settled on 150. It seems like a nice scary number, but not too scary.


But some Democrats are working against these efforts to secure our country, opposing the PATRIOT Act and terrorist surveillance program. Their leader is Russ Feingold. He eats babies. Seriously, we saw him just last week order a Salad with Fried Baby on the side at the Democratic Cafeteria. We believe that life begins at conception and ends when the batteries run out on the ventilator. He eats babies. Who you gonna trust, him, the baby-eater, or the ones who are pro-life, pro-torture and pro the good clean fun of war.


Now Feingold and other Democrats want to censure the President. Publicly reprimanding President Bush for pursuing suspected members of al Qaeda. This is horrible and traitorous and if it was up to us we would have Dems who talk like this strung up on the Mall in Washington so decent, humble and honorable citizens could whack them publicly with sticks. This is what our Puritan ancestors used to do and they founded a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that whacking people with views opposed to the Great Leader is a Constitutional way of showing you love God. It's the American Way.


Some Democrats are even calling for President Bush’s impeachment. Is this how Democrats plan to win the War on Terror? We told you back at the Republican Convention that the Democrats planned on using spitballs to win the WOT. Now, they've updated their plan to include things like Impeachment to get the job done. Impeachment and spitballs, tsk, tsk, tsk, that is no way to kill, main, torture and intimidate people. Only Republicans know how to do those things and they can't be done with wussies tools like spitballs and impeachment. Tell Sen. Feingold that real men fight with guns, water boards and those little stakes they put under people's fingernails. Impeachment is for those kids who nobody ever chose for basketball in gym class in high school. Yeah, it still hurts. A lot.


Call Russ Feingold and ask him why he’s more interested in censuring the President than protecting our freedom. And tell him that free countries do not hold their leaders responsible for their illegal actions. Only wussy nations like Canada and Lichtenstein do that and nobody takes them seriously in the world. What kind of an impression do we make on the terrorists when we have Senators publicly asking that people be held accountable for their actions. This causes the terrorists to laugh so hard they end up splitting their pants. It's terrible to be laughed at by terrorists. What is Mr. Feingold thinking putting us through that? We are just trying to make an evil living here, we don't need this kind of stress. It's hard enough with all the indictments and hurricanes and Ports Deals and everything. Give us a break, we're only inhuman.


Paid for by the Republican National Committee. The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising. (Well, not all of it.)

I'm thinking of posting this in GD. What do you think?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2529411