The Progressive's Ruth Conniff: "WHAT ABOUT CENSURE?"

[flpoljunkie]

http://progressive.org/mag_conniff0606

What About Censure?

By Ruth Conniff
June 2006 Issue

Soon after Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, proposed censuring the President for his unauthorized wiretapping program, Democrats began tripping all over themselves as they rushed to back away from the proposal. Columnists, news reporters, and bloggers documented the stampede to the exits by Feingold’s colleagues. In one hilarious report, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank described Hillary Clinton literally trying to hide behind the diminutive Barbara Mikulski to avoid answering a question about censure.

<>What happens next on the Judiciary Committee is up to Republican Chairman Arlen Specter. There could be more hearings, a vote on censure, or the issue could be shelved indefinitely. Politically, whether the Dems decide to become a more aggressive opposition will be up to the party leadership—and pressure from constituents. But on the merits, the idea that censure needs “more study” doesn’t make a lot of sense.

As Feingold points out, Bush has admitted to skirting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. /The Administration’s legal justifications—that Congress unwittingly approved domestic wiretapping in its 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force after 9/11, and that the commander in chief has the inherent authority to wiretap without court approval—are absurd.

Furthermore, the Democrats can’t really have it both ways—intimating that Bush’s actions are egregious, and that censure for those actions is beyond the pale. Even as a purely political calculation, running away from censure doesn’t seem like a very clever strategy. But more than that, it is the basic duty of Congress to speak up when the President breaks the law. If the Democrats can’t do that, what good are they?