Here is the text of Fengold's Spanking of Chris Wallace

[usregimechange]

WALLACE: But none of them have talked about censure. So if you change the law, why not just change the law? Why do you have to call for censuring a president during the middle of wartime?

FEINGOLD: Well, how — are we going to have a system, Chris, where whenever the president wants to make up his own law, he goes ahead and does it, and we say, gee, Mr. President, you broke the law, that's too bad. Let's make a law to make what you're doing legal. What kind of a government is that? What kind of a system is that? And what kind of a message to our kids? If you don't like the law, just make up whatever you want to do and keep going. Frankly, it's outrageous. And if there isn't some accountability, apart from the need to possibly look at legislation, if there isn't some statement that the president can't just make up his own laws, what have we come to? Who are we? It's an outrage, and every member of Congress and every American should say to the president, Mr. President, we respect your commitment in the fight against terrorism, but you've got to return to the law. You've got to return to the way we do things in this system.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,190226,00.html

[oasis]

1. "middle of wartime"? get your facts straight Chris. Condiliar says it's a

"reconstuction period" that Iraq is going through at present.

[radfringe]

6. just my 2-cents on the "middle of the war" bs

when a leader is failing it's time to get a new leader. This is even more vital during a time of war (or as Oasis pointed out during a reconstruction period)

[Ilsa]

15. It will always be the neverending WOT. They will always have

an excuse.

[Imperialism Inc.]

24. Exactly.

Cheney has said the war may last 70 years or a generation. So what they are proposing is not that the President gets unlimited powers for a little bit but for several decades. Since there is no enemy state, no one to surrender and sign treaties to end the war, this basically all at the President's discretion. It's over when he says it's over.

Can you imagine a politician saying it is over? Pretty dangerous because if he does and there is another attack he is politically toast. So there is no incentive to ever end the WOT. Does anyone really think that the office of the President will willingly hand over absolute power that they will have held for several decades?

[me b zola]

2. Feingold was fabulous today

This is the level of grace, competence, honnesty, honor & integrity that we should see from every Senator.

[neoblues]

3. If Only! Imagine...

Imagine the United States government actually functioning as designed! That woud really be quite a shock.

Every last member of Congress (with only a very few exceptions) needs to grow a spine and an independent brain. That, and professional ethics... including a real 'work ethic' (as in get off their butts and do their jobs!). And, they need us... to remind them daily in the strongest possible terms!

[shenmue]

4. I saw that

It was great.

:7

[tulsakatz]

5. is there a video of this?

Thanks for the transcript...........I would love to see the video if it's available online somewhere.

[Neil Lisst]

7. I am so sick of that "against a president in the middle of a war"

First of all, this is not the level of war that justifies that kind statement. A world war, maybe. But beating up on a small country because you want to prove you're not Daddy?! NO.

[tiptoe]

12. The 9/11 Destruction was Created for "call-to-war" with Iraq

1) Al Qaeda(?)...with assists from 'inside-job demolitionists' with 24-hr WTC access & weeks advance knowledge of the 9/11 event (MIHOP)
and
2) a PNAC-influenced mal-administration of conspiring Neocons wanting their 'Pearl Harbor' (LIHOP)

"AQ"(Saudis?) and "Stand down orders"(admin Neocons?) and "WTC Security"(Securacom, Marvin Bush?) and "Silverstein"(knew about WTC7 pre-positioned explosives?)

Jeff King, MIT Engineeer, Research Scientist

"When I first saw the collapses, I was absolutely convinced they were not spontanteous...there were squibs, which represent little puffs of smokes essentially coming out of the buildings initially...which were clearly a sign of controlled demolition...'without a doubt'...
--snip--
The obvious question: What does it mean that there was controlled demolition?...At the simplest level someone had a lot of access to the buidings over a long enough period of time to set this up ...It implies that the people who had effective control of site had an interest in having it scrubbed and making sure no information was available...that a foresnic reconstruction couldn't be done
--snip--
On the weekend before <911> there were "power downs" and there appear to have been evacuation drills going on throughout the previous week, which suggests that at least some people knew that something was happening. The power downs may represent the time window in which demolition charges would have been planted, although I think it's possible that they also were planted over a much longer period of time, given the relative accessibility of the buildings.(Source, emphasis added)

James H Fetzer, PhD, Prof Philosphy, Univ of Minnesota, Duluth
Co-Chair of Scholars for 9/11 <www.st911.org> ( Recommended Viewing: <Loose Change>, 2nd edition, Jan 16, 2006, online or downloadable )
Former Marine Corps Officer
Author or editor of more than 20 books

"...Most of the debris was removed by an extremely efficient company by the name of Controlled Demolition..."

"...Tremendous explosion in the sub-basement...recorded by a seismograph about 8 or 9 seconds before the planes impacted the buildings..."

"...started cleaning up the site almost immediately..."

Larry Silverstein: "The smartest thing to do is "Pull it" <WTC7...'Pulling' in construction means take it down by controlled demolition.>

"In order to pull the building, there had to be pre-positioned explosives..."

"...The building could not have been pulled unless there had been Pre-Positioned Explosives, which raises the very appropriate question: Does that mean there could have been pre-positioned explosives in the WTC?

"Well, there had been a lot of reports on oddities involving security in the weeks leading up to 9/11. The agency responsible for its security is a company named Securacom. A director of the agency which not only was responsible for security at the WTC but also at Dulles Airport and United Airlines was none other than Marvin Bush, the President's brother."

"It's pretty clear this was an inside job."
(Source, emphasis added)

“Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema, to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. … <W>e must destroy them to advance our historic mission.”
Michael Ledeen

"We can lead by the force of high moral example ... <but> fear is much more reliable, and lasts longer.”
Michael Ledeen
Michael Ledeen is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a major think tank, and influential with Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, currently pushing Iran agenda
(Source)

LT. COL. KAREN KWIATKOSKI, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Well, it was the summer of 2002. I had some concerns, even before, with the drumbeats for war, OK, but that was administration drumbeats, not inside the Pentagon. I had never met a neo-conservative, per se, who advocated this for these ideological reasons, this destructive chaos that Michael Ledeen likes to talk about.

BRIAN LAMB, HOST: Who is Michael Ledeen?

KWIATKOSKI: Michael Ledeen, he’s, well, a friend of Carl Rose <sic>, for one. He’s connected with Iran Contra, got in a little trouble in the Reagan Administration. He’s part of a deal - he did some Iran arms for Contra money deals. He’s that kind of a guy. And he works for the American. He is an adjunct or a member fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, which is a key institute. And I think even George Bush admitted that - proudly so, not admitted, he was happy that the American Enterprise Institute provided 25 or 30 people into this administration, very much a neo-conservative outfit, lots of big vision, lots of nice things about democracy and democracy promotion, that kind of thing.

But anyway, Ledeen is one of those guys. He was not, I don’t think, technically in the Office of Special Plans, but we saw him around, and he was a presence. And anyway, he’s - a lot of the things that these folks wrote outside the Pentagon reflected things that Bill Loody <sic> might say maybe in the heat of passion, very condemning of critics of anything that they were doing.
(April 2, 2006, emphasis added)

Part 2 of the 9/11 investigation never occurred, courtesy Sen. Pat Roberts.

[ProfessorGAC]

29. This Time We Completely Agree, Neil

You took the words right off the end of my fingertips. I probably would have typed the what you did, verbatim, had i not seen your post.

The Professor

[MrBlueSky]

33. What war???

I think everyone should stop using the word "war."

The last legal <declared> war was World War II.

So... in that sense... it's OK to question the President... during a "Police Action!" <Does this ring a bell to Vietnam era folks???>

:shrug:

[driver8]

8. Why does Feingold hate America?

Why does he insist on holding the President accountable? Why won't he stick his head in the send like the rest of the Senate? Why won't he let junior do what he wants? We all know that shrubby would NEVER abuse his power unless it was for the good of our country.

I just don't get why people want to hold the pResident accountable for his actions. How is democracy supposed to thrive under these conditions?

[SeattleGirl]

9. Excellent response, Senator Feingold!

:applause: :applause: :applause:

[Hekate]

10. K&R for Feingold saying what needs to be said!

[donheld]

11. Why didn't Bill Clinton think of that

Why didn't he just pass a law making blow jobs from white house interns a requirement of their service? :shrug::eyes::banghead:

[annabanana]

25. lol. . .good one!. . . . . n//t

[Strawman]

28. Maybe Clinton should have briefed the judge

about his blow job and then bound him to silence about it for national security reasons.

Or after he lied about it, maybe he should have had the balls to suggest that the Republicans in Congress should pass a law making it ok for him to lie in court. He acted in "good faith" to protect his marriage and the president should be entitled to some privacy, so let's just fix the law after the fact. :sarcasm:

Clinton may have tried to squirm and finesse his way out of the trap that was set for him by these RW nuts, but he never advanced (as a political argument) that the President should just be able to change the law to make his illegal actions comport to it after the fact.

Clinton technically may (or may not) have broken the perjury law. Bush has defied the basic notion of the rule of law. There's a big big difference here. Bush basically says he defines everything in the current political landscape and that even includes the law. We can't call him a criminal because he has enough raw political power to impose his will. In his view, accountability and definition of his actions on terms other than his are the cardinal sins of politics. The law is either instrumental to his political project or totally irrelevant.

[pberq]

13. Kick & Nominated !

[enough]

14. k&r for Senator Feingold

[Vinca]

16. Feingold was brilliant. I held my nose and turned to Fox .

It must be a shocker to the raving lunatics when they see and hear Feingold rather than relying on second hand opinions from right wing radio. Russ is calm, collected, poised and makes excellent points, one after the other. Chris Wallace seemed disappointed he couldn't skewer him.

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Notice the circular logic?

The war that Wallace is using to criticize dissent and retaliation against Bush is the Iraq War, but the Iraq War was an illegal war and is one of the reasons that Bush should be impeached. So how do you hold Bush accountable for taking us into an illegal war, when his supporters use that illegal war to quiet dissent?

[yurbud]

35. excellent point

[Laura PourMeADrink]

18. Feingold was

Absolutely, positively brilliant ! What a superb, intelligent, eloquent spokesman and leader, with true guts, for our party. I am totally encouraged !

Wallace was absolutely, positively snide !

[MadisonProgressive]

19. Show your support for Russ!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2547836

[dogday]

20. I love this part.....

You can't just create whatever laws you want. We have to go through the system of government we've always had. You know, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution were not repealed on 9/11, and we all are unified in fighting the terrorists. But we're not going to give the terrorists the victory of destroying our own system of government in order to satisfy a White House that has very grandiose views of the extent of their powers.

[VP505]

21. I only caught

the last few min of Feingold with Wallace, but in that short time, Wallace the tool, shamelessly kept throwing one right wing-nut talking point after another at Feingold. Unfortunately for Wallace, Senator Feingold did a damm good job of swatting down all of his talking points.

[bdamomma]

23. I give Senator Feingold

the credit he deserves by standing up to the right wing media, speaking truth to power. I only wish his colleagues would grow a pair and support Feingold.

[annabanana]

26. Hey there, alyce!

You are right. This is possibly the most principled man in Congress right now. We should elect lots more just like him.

and

:toast: Welcome to DU

[AnneD]

22. I was privliged to see it...

(at last all those time suffering through that show paid off). Russ made his points in clear concise terms. He did not 'take the bait' and get off topic (eaves dropping for national security) and most importantly, he refuse to back down in his support of the Constitution and the rule of law. He even framed that in a family values way (what does the presidents actions teach our kids). Chris was outclassed and Russ mopped the floor with him. And the 'panel' afterwards was great. They were clucking like a bunch of biddies that had seen the old rooster rounded up to be turned into Sunday's dinner.

Personally, I think Bush has done an impeachable offense (several in fact) AND should be impeached. But since there aren't to many DEM's with balls, I don't think it will happen. I will say they were right about one thing. If Feingold does take a notion to run for higher office, I would have no problems voting for him. Tough times call for tough leadership and he has proven than he can come to a reasonable decision, does not think he is above the law, and actually will uphold and protect the Constitution.

[EVDebs]

27. Everything Bush does, every whim, the R Congress OK'd in AUMFs

simply by containing the "as he determines..." language, which is counter to the War Powers Act of 1973 and the Constitution itself which gave Congress war declaring powers.

This all came about when Congress went from Dem control to Republican control.

In November this can all be corrected !

BTW, the embedded WPAof'73 REQUIRES truthful circumstances and situations not to mention clarity. Where do we have that in the Iraq situation ? Justification du jour, anyone ?

[Debi]

30. Every time the republicans try to knock Russ down he's unmovable

He was prepared for EVERYTHING that twit threw at him. Once again, strong - stable - and right!!! GO RUSS GO!!

[usregimechange]

31. Still would like the video...

[MrBlueSky]

32. I like this!

While I enjoy seeing Faux News eat crow :spank: ... A LOT , I must add here that I prefer to see the Republicans go on unabated... without interference from Feingold and others. This is especially true with the immigration debate.... I say... let the nativists have their way.

That way, we Democrats get BOTH houses of Congress at the end of this year!

If we stand up now... we risk allowing the Repubs to keep the Senate. :hippie:

And who, in God's name, wants that to happen???? :scared:

[11 Bravo]

34. George Bush wants to cornhole your dog, steal your car, and read your mail

The AUMF clearly states that he can do so (although you must interpret the provision liberally ... oh FUCK, did I say liberally? Damn it!) Why do you long-haired, left-wing, pinko, commie, agitators hate America?

[Grey Ghost]

36. Video available at BradBlog

hey all,

http://bradblog.com/

It's currently the second item on the front page...

[newyawker99]

37. Hi Grey Ghost!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[tulsakatz]

39. thanks!

Great interview!! I was particularly impressed that he did so well on Fox! Even Faux News couldn't present a convincing argument against censure!!

He's right too..........if you have a govt where you can make whatever laws to support criminal behavior, that is NOT a democracy!! And anyone who would support a govt like that, surely does not even understand what a democracy is!

[Time for change]

38. That's terrific - Thank God for Russ Feingold

He could have added: "Hey, why not just make dictatorship legal, since that's what we already have? Wouldn't it be better to have a legal dictatorship than an illegal one?"

[Catfight]

40. Lately Feingold is the only person in WA making sense! nt

[Orsino]

41. FOX' Chris Wallace Stays on Message...

...repeatedly and willfully misinterpreting the President's FISA obligations and the highly selective briefing of certain Senate Intelligence Committee members. Along the way, he's on auto-pilot, relentlessly hammering home FOX' talking point du jour.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,190226,00.html

Here:

WALLACE: Well, Senator, let me explore that comparison with you if I can. Did President Nixon brief members of Congress more than a dozen times before and during Watergate?

And here:

WALLACE: But wait, wait, wait. That's not — but Senator, I mean the fact is, President Bush briefed the congressional leaders, both House and Senate, Republican and Democrat, also the leaders of the Intelligence Committee, Republican and Democrat, both House and Senate, more than a dozen times...

And here:

WALLACE: Senator, I want to go back to the briefing of congressional leaders, because, as I say, he did brief congressional leaders of both parties more than a dozen times...

And here:

WALLACE: Senator, let's talk about what's at the basis of all this, which is the NSA warrantless wiretap program that the president authorized. Have you been briefed on the program?

And here:

WALLACE: Well, let me ask you about that, Senator, because almost two dozen members of Congress have been briefed in detail about the program, members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee.

Despite Wallace's clumsy deployment of the Chewbacca defense, repeated for maximum hypnotic power, Senator Feingold managed to inject the relevant point:

FEINGOLD: Of course it's essential to national security. All we have to do is bring it within the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and I know that Congresswoman Harman has said specifically that she does not believe we need to change the law in this area, but it can be done within the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. So the very member of Congress that you cited has said we all think this program is important, but it can be done within the law. That's the point. The White House keeps acting as if we don't want them to be able to do this. Of course we do; we just need a court check and balance. That's what the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is all about, to make sure that the White House doesn't run amuck, or somebody doing this doesn't abuse the law.

So there is no dispute about whether we should have it. And those very senators, including Senator Levin himself, have certainly not said publicly that it's essential that we go outside of the law to do this. I've heard none of them say this, and none of them will say that.

[ThoughtCriminal]

42. War?

Did I miss a "Declaration of War" as defined by the Constitution?