Sen. Feingold's Censure Resolution is Moderate and Reasonable
(Cross-posted at Unclaimed Territory)
On Sunday Senator Russ Feingold called for President Bush to be censured by Congress for authorizing extensive and ongoing violations of a criminal statute, FISA. There is nothing at all radical about Feingold's proposal. The administration has admitted that it circumvented FISA and there is broad agreement across party lines that the President did not have the authority to do so (hence, the move by Congressional Republicans to pass some sort of legislation making the President's actions legal, at least going forward). Despite this broad bipartisan consensus, Feingold will undoubtedly be labeled as a rabid partisan by the GOP, someone "extreme" and "out-of-touch." And if history is any guide, this characterization will be reinforced by Feingold's Democratic colleagues who will immediately try to distance themselves from his proposal in order to be seen as "reasonable." On Sunday, Glenn did a great job describing this same phenomenon in the context of the relationship between the Democratic establishment and the blogosphere.
What Democratic politicians fail to understand--and this is particularly ironic given the Democratic party's historical association with the labor movement--is that this is fundamentally a collective action problem. The term "reasonable" has no objective meaning, at least in the realm of politics. Whether an idea is deemed "reasonable" has little to do with the merits of the idea and everything to do with the prevailing political climate as interpreted by our national media. GOP strategists like Karl Rove long ago realized that the national media will treat any talking point that is repeated by enough people as ipso facto "reasonable," and conversely, will treat any idea that is not repeated by a sufficient number of people as "unreasonable" or "extreme," no matter what its objective merits. It's a very crude calculus and one that is easily manipulated by shrewd partisans.
A textbook example of this phenomenon--if you'll pardon a brief digression--is the debate over the repeal of the Estate Tax. A decade ago, the idea of repealing the Estate Tax--a tax which applies only to the inherited wealth of the super-rich--was a complete and utter fantasy. Indeed, it's hard to imagine a proposal that, on its face, is more objectively unreasonable--from both a political and policy perspective--than repealing a tax which only affects the Paris Hiltons of the world. But through sheer collective will, the GOP came very close to doing just that this past year, and at a time of exploding deficits and a prolonged, expensive war. What Republican strategists have learned is that when a party speaks in unison, it has the power to define what is considered reasonable in the eyes of the national media, and in turn, the American public.
Democrats, however, cannot seem to internalize this idea. They approach politics as if the rules of reasonability and civil discourse are immutable or have been set by some neutral referee. When someone like Howard Dean steps over this arbitrary line, Democrats join the GOP in immediately calling "foul." When a Republican steps over the line, however, more often than not his Republican colleagues act collectively to move the line. Suddenly we find ourselves in a debate over whether outing a CIA agent is actually a good thing, or whether a law that has been on the books for three decades and repeatedly reaffirmed by this President should be violated. It doesn't matter what the consensus was five minutes ago. Talking points that would have seemed totally absurd days earlier suddenly become credible and reasonable, and for no other reason than they are being repeated by a chorus of Republican politicians, pundits, and bloggers. In this way, the definition of "reasonable" can be changed dramatically overnight.
Senator Feingold's call for Congressional censure is an eminently reasonable response to the NSA scandal by any objective measure. Just eight years ago, Congressional Republicans impeached a president for lying about a private consensual affair in the context of a frivolous civil suit which was financed and litigated by the president's enemies. We are now faced with a president who is engaged in ongoing violations of a criminal statute intended to protect the constitutional rights of the American people. There is agreement that extends well beyond party lines that the President does not have the constitutional or statutory authority to do what he is doing. This administration has repeatedly ignored, misled, and marginalized Congress. If such facts do not warrant censure, it's hard to know what does.
And as I've written in detail before, the Democrats have the law, the polls, and righteousness on their side. If they were to stand up as a party and support Feingold's motion for censure, they would have the full-throated support of virtually every left-leaning and centrist blogger, numerous prominent pundits and commentators, the majority of constitutional lawyers and legal professors, and a significant number of conservatives. In the face of such a chorus, the national media would be forced to cover Feingold's resolution as the reasonable, non-extreme measure that it is. For once, the Democratic party could show that it has a backbone and not allow the GOP to define the limits of reasonableness for them. If ever there was a time for collective action, it's now.
On Sunday Senator Russ Feingold called for President Bush to be censured by Congress for authorizing extensive and ongoing violations of a criminal statute, FISA. There is nothing at all radical about Feingold's proposal. The administration has admitted that it circumvented FISA and there is broad agreement across party lines that the President did not have the authority to do so (hence, the move by Congressional Republicans to pass some sort of legislation making the President's actions legal, at least going forward). Despite this broad bipartisan consensus, Feingold will undoubtedly be labeled as a rabid partisan by the GOP, someone "extreme" and "out-of-touch." And if history is any guide, this characterization will be reinforced by Feingold's Democratic colleagues who will immediately try to distance themselves from his proposal in order to be seen as "reasonable." On Sunday, Glenn did a great job describing this same phenomenon in the context of the relationship between the Democratic establishment and the blogosphere.
They [most Democrats politicians] don't want
to go anywhere near the citizen activism in
the blogosphere because Tim Russert and
Chris Matthews will no longer think they're a
moderate, serious, responsible Democrat, and
Republicans might accuse them of being an
extremist or a liberal. They'd prefer to avoid
that disapproval even it means losing (as it
usually does), than be criticized and win. The
reason they run away from their own allies in
the blogosphere is the same reason they so
often run away from taking a real stand
against the Bush Administration -- it's
because they are petrified that the
establishment media and even Republicans
will criticize them as being too combative, too
liberal, extremist, etc.
What Democratic politicians fail to understand--and this is particularly ironic given the Democratic party's historical association with the labor movement--is that this is fundamentally a collective action problem. The term "reasonable" has no objective meaning, at least in the realm of politics. Whether an idea is deemed "reasonable" has little to do with the merits of the idea and everything to do with the prevailing political climate as interpreted by our national media. GOP strategists like Karl Rove long ago realized that the national media will treat any talking point that is repeated by enough people as ipso facto "reasonable," and conversely, will treat any idea that is not repeated by a sufficient number of people as "unreasonable" or "extreme," no matter what its objective merits. It's a very crude calculus and one that is easily manipulated by shrewd partisans.
A textbook example of this phenomenon--if you'll pardon a brief digression--is the debate over the repeal of the Estate Tax. A decade ago, the idea of repealing the Estate Tax--a tax which applies only to the inherited wealth of the super-rich--was a complete and utter fantasy. Indeed, it's hard to imagine a proposal that, on its face, is more objectively unreasonable--from both a political and policy perspective--than repealing a tax which only affects the Paris Hiltons of the world. But through sheer collective will, the GOP came very close to doing just that this past year, and at a time of exploding deficits and a prolonged, expensive war. What Republican strategists have learned is that when a party speaks in unison, it has the power to define what is considered reasonable in the eyes of the national media, and in turn, the American public.
Democrats, however, cannot seem to internalize this idea. They approach politics as if the rules of reasonability and civil discourse are immutable or have been set by some neutral referee. When someone like Howard Dean steps over this arbitrary line, Democrats join the GOP in immediately calling "foul." When a Republican steps over the line, however, more often than not his Republican colleagues act collectively to move the line. Suddenly we find ourselves in a debate over whether outing a CIA agent is actually a good thing, or whether a law that has been on the books for three decades and repeatedly reaffirmed by this President should be violated. It doesn't matter what the consensus was five minutes ago. Talking points that would have seemed totally absurd days earlier suddenly become credible and reasonable, and for no other reason than they are being repeated by a chorus of Republican politicians, pundits, and bloggers. In this way, the definition of "reasonable" can be changed dramatically overnight.
Senator Feingold's call for Congressional censure is an eminently reasonable response to the NSA scandal by any objective measure. Just eight years ago, Congressional Republicans impeached a president for lying about a private consensual affair in the context of a frivolous civil suit which was financed and litigated by the president's enemies. We are now faced with a president who is engaged in ongoing violations of a criminal statute intended to protect the constitutional rights of the American people. There is agreement that extends well beyond party lines that the President does not have the constitutional or statutory authority to do what he is doing. This administration has repeatedly ignored, misled, and marginalized Congress. If such facts do not warrant censure, it's hard to know what does.
And as I've written in detail before, the Democrats have the law, the polls, and righteousness on their side. If they were to stand up as a party and support Feingold's motion for censure, they would have the full-throated support of virtually every left-leaning and centrist blogger, numerous prominent pundits and commentators, the majority of constitutional lawyers and legal professors, and a significant number of conservatives. In the face of such a chorus, the national media would be forced to cover Feingold's resolution as the reasonable, non-extreme measure that it is. For once, the Democratic party could show that it has a backbone and not allow the GOP to define the limits of reasonableness for them. If ever there was a time for collective action, it's now.
posted by A.L. at 8:05 AM
6 Comments:
You can co-sponsor Senator Feingold's censure resolution at http://www.progressivepatriotsfund.com/page/petition/censure0306.
I rather he was censured for PURE lack of performance (incompetence).
It signifies far more
I rather he was censured for PURE lack of performance
I find these types of comments so disappointing -- after all, chimpy is EXTREMELY COMPETENT if you were a major investor in halliburton and the rest of the military industrial complex.
If you have had your taxes repeatedly cut, he is extremely competent.
Of course, those that are making money hands over fist on the war machine are getting a double benefit - making out on both counts.
To proclaim that chimpy is a failure prevents us from looking at who's interest is he representing.
Is anyone really willing to argue that they stole the 2000 (and 2004) elections to represent the "will of the people?"
LOL
Chimpy has "successfully" accomplished what generations of other wingnuts have failed to deliver on.
And as I've written in detail before, the Democrats have the law, the polls, and righteousness on their side.
Your not correct, liberals are learning their lessons well. Your comment would sound exactly like them just substitute the word Democrat for Republican.
I am not sure it is "reasonable" at all.
Feingold and his censure motion have been and will continue to be mocked, as an empty and meaningless gesture, which it surely is, coming as it does, from the powerless Democrats. Moreover, although, perhaps, proportional to the FISA issue, censure is inadequate to the whole of Bush's conduct -- I am referring to the probable war crimes of aggressive war and torture.
A majority of the Media elite, of the punditocracy, and the largest part of the people, who elected Bush, are still asleep in a dream world, where Bush is not a very bad leader and where, to save our country further grief, we should not be seeking immediately to remove him from power.
Those of us wide awake, and politically powerless, are left to flail around, hopelessly trying to find a way to wake those people up. Mere events, wave after wave of scandal, endless indications in the news of the day of America's rapid economic and moral decline, appear inadequate to wake them from their slumber.
The task, at hand, is, nevertheless, to wake our fellow Americans, and, then, to do what must be done, including to censure the President.
If we could get some important part of the country's political leadership to act as if the President's misconduct was a serious matter, maybe that would wake those people to the reality that the President's misconduct is a serious matter.
As far as FISA is concerned, that hope is vainglorious, in a way, which illustrates why Feingold is such a quixotic and impractical individual. A minority of the population, who are comfortable with abstract principles in isolation, are convinced by what we know. Feingold, an idealist, is typical of that minority. Bush has succeeded in the obscuring the concrete details of what he did, and it is the concrete details, which would matter to a political majority. You have to practical consequences in evidence, to convince a political majority, not just abstract principles.
If Feingold is an idealist-- he's a Good-Idealist. Russ was right when he was the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act, people are starting to come around. He was right when he voted against the War in Iraq, America has overwhelmingly come around. He is right about Censure and people will come around on this too.
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