Why I think Feingold may have misstepped

[Perky]

First I honestly think that Censure is the first and most important response. I called for Censure the week wiretapping broke because there was virtually no chance of impeachment.

Here are my concerns:


Why did he wait until now? Why not earlier? Why not when the public spotlight was on the issue again? The timing was odd. It was perceived in the general populace as odd and certainly maverick.

Now Feingold wears the maverick label proudly and that's fine. But to introduce the resolution without the open support of other key democrats
looks quixotic and at certain levels desperate for the limelight.

To do it when he did it and how he did, principled though it may have been, makes me wonder if he has the political temperament to lead the country. To criticize Dems for playing Duck and Cover, may have been completely correct analysis, but to appear pissed at your fellow senators, when you need to line up endorsement and support going into a presidential campaign says something about far-sightedness.

You want to run for President as an outsider that is fine. But campaigns live and die not on goodwill. It is about fundraising short and simple. More concisely it is about donor lists. Particularly when you are not going to be taking PAC money. If he was going to take PAC/big donor money, I would say that he really shot himself in the foot.

Russ Feingold is dead on right with regards to censure.

If he had done this in week one...If he had done this right after the Gonzalez testimony...If he had waited until Judiciary had finished its work...If he had waited to Specter chimed in again he could have really put Specter on the spot. There are ways this could have been done where he could have actually gotten his vote and been seen as a hero to the majority of Americans who have grave concerns about the wiretapping.

Time will tell, but the manner in which this was done, the timing and his response to the Party makes me question his political instincts and may have, at certain levels, marginalized his candidacy as Quixotic.

[rodeodance]

1. my thoughts on waiting. He is on the Intel committee--and he wanted

to see it the Committee was serious or not. But an agreement was reached last week. They basically will revise the law--make it legal for for Bush to do the wiretapping (forgetting it was Illlegal the last 4 years). He tried the committee route but it failed for him.



Why did he wait until now? Why not earlier? Why not when the public spotlight was on the issue again? The timing was odd. It was perceives in the general populace as odd and certainly maverick.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. Any earlier and he would have called "rash" and "premature"

I agree that he needed to wait until the results of the Judicial Committee were forthcoming. Censure is better than cover-up and revision in my opinion.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. I think the timing is correct

We've had a completely inadequate hearing with little or no follow-up and the focus now seems to be how to rewrite laws retroactively to cover the President's illegal activity. Feingold is correct in redrawing focus to the fact that laws were broken and covered-up consciously by this administration with no accountability whatsoever and now it's just "move along, nothing to see here . . ."

[Warren Stupidity]

3. I say when anyone stands up and speaks the truth

as good Democrats we must do one or more of the following:

a) internalize the fascist talking points spewed by the MSM against the truth speaker and regurgitate them as our own;

b) analyze every detail of the actions of the fool who stood up, looking for some reason, any reason, to declare his or her efforts foolhardy and not worthy of the supremely clever strategizing that has lead the Democratic Party to surrender control of all three branches of government.

Feingold joins Murtha out in the field, no longer good enough to be inside the house in the great plantation that is Washington DC.

[jedr]

5. One would doubt that Feingold did this on a whim;

Whatever his calculations, the jury is still out for a day or two. My take is that he has become the boy who said " The Emperor is wearing no clothes" and those on both sides of the isle are still digesting that. The truth has finally been spoken; how will the U.S. cope with that?

[Perky]

8. I supect they will ingnore the truth. N/T

[EFerrari]

6. Anyone who can make Bill Frist look like he's swallowed

a bucket of nails has my support. If he can cause Arlen Specter to stutter, he also has my activism.

[Perky]

7. Again the issue I raise is about his political skills and saavy

I think he may have damaged himself in his White House run It not that he was wrong...it was junst done poorly.

[MrBenchley]

9. It got Russ into the headlines for a few days

at a time when the "Feingold in 2008" boomlet was faltering. So in that sense it wasn't a misstep at all.

But I don't believe it was ever a serious attempt at a censure resolution. It was a stunt akin to visiting the state fair and getting photographed with the world's largest cheese or the blue ribbon steer.

[Perky]

11. Wow you are even ore cynical then me.

Are you saying it was about 2008 and he is going to run a "Howard Dean" Campaign?

[MrBenchley]

13. Yeah, it was a headline-grabbing stunt

with no other purpose than to get the internet cowboys whooping and hollering....

[mod mom]

14. A stunt? Defending the constitution against a pResident who believes he

is above the law-a stunt? I am appalled at the other Dems not following with Sen Feingold. I personally think it is about time for our "elected" leaders take action against the illegal actions of this administration.

Your disdain for Feingold has been apparent on other posts. What ever the reason for it, perhaps you might want to think about the importance of his action over the personality issues you have with him.

As for me...Sen Feingold:

:patriot:

[MrBenchley]

32. A stunt....

"perhaps you might want to think about the importance of his action"
It got him into the headlines for a few days and excited the primates online into hooting and banging the cage bars.....but it wasn't anything else.

[magnolia]

10. Who cares!!!!

Geez...after the endless complaining about dems not having a back bone, someone finally stands up...and we pick him apart!

Regarding our dem leaders I look at the glass half full...instead of half empty. Focus on what they do right...instead of the constant criticism, judgement and cynicism of their weakness. If you don't like what one of them has done, it's enough to let him/her know. George Clooney is right...they are paralized with fear of criticism. But the bulk of the criticism shouldn't be coming from the left.

[EFerrari]

12. I suppose I disagree. Feingold didn't one day wake up

and decide to steal the limelight. He has been at this issue for some time and vigorously. And his timing disrupts the Thug's move to cover Bush with legislation.

If the party attempts to marginalize him, they will be making a mistake and it's a shame that this mistake seems to get made over and over.

[HereSince1628]

15. Personally I'd like to have the right thing done, timing be damned.

In the past 5 years the Democrats have NEVER found a time to make an organized stand against Bush's deeping destruction of constitutional government.

I think I'd like to explore some questions about why the Democratic support for Feingold looks like it does. Critical thinking on this latest episode ought to reach out to include all the Suits who represent us. Isn't this latest episode a sterling example of the DCDems behavior for the last many years? What does the microcosm of this event tell us about the greater reality of the failure of effective Democratic opposition?

Couldn't Feingold's timing be the frustrated end to _weeks_ of trying to get his Democratic colleagues on board? Do we have evidence he and his staff never tried? I know he announced it like the Lone Ranger, but that doesn't mean that was how the behind the scenes action took place.

Does Feingold's orientation to the interests of the base rather than the DCDems' orientation to the political advisors and corporate funding sources put him at odds with most of his senate colleagues, and label him as risking their carefully groomed interests? Is _that_ why the DCDems are slapping him down?

A handful of Democrats have presidential aspirations and the Democratic party has shadow controllers just as well as do the Republicans. Do "they" want to deny Feingold any chance of success in the role of opposition leader? Wouldn't that help them advance "their" interests to keep milk flowing from the tit with the "corporations only" tatoo on it? Don't they perhaps fear that Feingold's upstart/outsider base-appealing presidential aspirations might want to make cheese for the poor from the milk they are getting fat on?

[ScreamingMeemie]

16. I don't think so. I'm just glad he did it. This is "way paving" at it's

best. Because Feingold is now "taking the hit"...in a few weeks it will be okay for Kerry, Clinton and the rest of the softies to speak up about it, IMO. This is what happened with the vote for war...this is what is happening now. Thank you Russ...Next thing you know the "liberal" media will overplay a clip of him shouting something...to make him appear unpredictable and crazy even.

[Minnesota Libra]

17. Oh but you are FORGETTING something here..........

.....someone has to be the first.:think: SOMEONE has to be the first to walk the plank, so to speak, and let the chips land here they may in order to do what's right.

Personally, I understand EXACTLY WHY Feingold seemed so angry when he was introducing his censure bill. EVERYONE has known all along that the boy king was stepping over the line with impunity and yet no one officially said a word.:wtf: So Feingold did what no one else would do and like clock work here people are finding fault with it.:wtf: :banghead:

I guess everyone was supposed to continue to :hide: from the truth and never say a word. Would that have been better? :sarcasm:

[mattclearing]

18. I have to disagree.

He has positioned himself perfectly as the heir to Howard Dean.

He is the only candidate, short of maybe Wesley Clark, who is going to have small donor base appeal.

[Perky]

20. But the 2004 Dean Lesson is that you HAVEto win early

Internet fueld insurgencies are fine but you are sgoing to have to beeat the expectation game in Iowa if the Governor jumps in and if you do not finish hish in the soon to be announced southern and western caucuses or New Hampshire... you won't have the money to continue past South Carolina.

When Dean did not beat expectations in Iowa, anf then when the "scream" hurt him in NH he was pretty much toast.

[mattclearing]

29. It's still too early to judge. I'm willing to bet that Feingold has

learned from Dean's mistakes.

For one, Feingold is generally fairly even-toned when he speaks, whereas Dean would get very excited when "throwing out the red meat."

Feingold will be much harder for the media to destroy, and he is a much more effective debater than Dean was.

The right wing should be terrified of him.

[fujiyama]

19. He probably should have consulted with a few other senators

It might have at least had the appearence of having more support among Dems, but the clear fact is that most senate Dems have proven be cowards. They have failed in their duty to take Bush to task. And yes, I understand reality. I'm not asking for impeachment.

But the minimum they could have been doing these last several years is voting against every miserable piece of legislation Bush pushed through.

Now I know this is a generalization and there have been a few that have been steadfast in their opposition...but the party is showing itself to be weak and unable to confront Bush.

Feingold's move is a good reminder how pathetic state the party is in. I though Ed Helms' analogy about a bum beating him up and then finally hitting himself was the best to date.

The least the Dems can do is censure Bush. It was illegal. Perhaps it would have been more effective after the elections, assuming Dems were to actually win.

But months from now, people would have forgotten illegal wiretaps, so this keeps it in the news and it keeps as a reminder that Bush broke the law.

[LeftHander]

21. So pointing out criminal acts is for mavericks?

I guess people forget that Feingold was a Harvard Law grad with honors and a Rhodes scholar.

If anyone understands the legal implications of NSA wiretapping I would say Russ does...

[Perky]

23. Did I say that?

No. I was commenting about the methods and timing not the message.

[Perky]

Self delete (dupe)

[Perky]

24. Self delete (dupe)

[Perky]

25. Self delete (dupe)

[dogday]

22. Feingold is a true Patriot.

He does not see the party line affiliation, he feels a conscience... I know that while many in Washington are afraid to do and say anything to jeopardize their precious careers, Russ stands alone and says we have to hold this administration accountable....

Those are the actions of a Patriot, not a maverick....

[EFerrari]

26. If he's a maverick, then that doesn't speak well

for the herd who seems fine with our civil rights being shredded. Was Feingold the only one who took an Oath of Office?

[flpoljunkie]

27. A candidate who shuns "big donor money?" We can't have that, now can we?

"You want to run for President as an outsider that is fine. But campaigns live and die not on goodwill. It is about fundraising short and simple. More concisely it is about donor lists. Particularly when you are not going to be taking PAC money. If he was going to take PAC/big donor money, I would say that he really shot himself in the foot."

[Perky]

28. I have no problem with small money

None at all...But As I said previously. You need the help of your fellow senators to get your fundraising efforts primed. Donor lists (small donor lists) and email lists are essential... You call your colleagues cowards, they are not going to be to invlined to give you those lists.

If you wan to run an Internet-fueled insurgency you have to win eary and win big. You have to beat expectations in Iowa and the new caucuses before have a scoring in NH. If you do not have an out and out win by SC you are toast.

[flpoljunkie]

30. Yes, Feingold cannot count on the Dem establishment. Not a bad thing.

Feingold may well be making a bold move to be the alternative on the left to Hillary Clinton. That is a good thing.

[Perky]

31. Face it It was an either a politically motiviated stunt

or apoliticaly naive gesture.