Discussion Topic: The Politics of the Censure Resolution
Yesterday I posted an entry here –”Wanna Make this About Who’s Hurting America? Bring It On!”– calling for support for Senator Feingold’s resolution to censure the president for his lawlessness.
I got the idea for writing that piece late last week. Then I read an article in the NYTimes entitled, “Call for Censure Is Rallying Cry to Bush’s Base ,” at
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/politics/16impeach.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=c0fe339030f1f4ad&hp&ex=1142571600&partner=homepage&oref=slogin, which gave me some pause. Among the things it said was:
The proposal this week by Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, to censure Mr. Bush over his domestic eavesdropping program cheered the left. But it also dovetailed with conservatives’ plans to harness such attacks to their own ends.
With the Republican base demoralized by continued growth in government spending, undiminished violence in Iraq and intramural disputes over immigration, some conservative leaders had already begun rallying their supporters with speculation about a Democratic rebuke to the president even before Mr. Feingold made his proposal.
….
“The threat of impeachment, Mr. Weyrich suggested, was one of the only factors that could inspire the Republican Party’s demoralized base to go to the polls. With “impeachment on the horizon,” he wrote, “maybe, just maybe, conservatives would not stay at home after all.”
….
“This is such a gift,” the conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh told listeners on his syndicated radio program on Monday, saying the Democrats were fulfilling his predictions. “They have to go back to this impeachment thing,” he said.
I hesitated: I did not want to play into the hands of the Bushites. It occurred to me that the Bushites quoted in the piece might well be using bravado and spin to try to create a reality rather than just to describe one. But I did not feel I could just assume that.
Many people, I know, would have no patience with my even wondering whether the censure resolution would play to the political benefit of the Bushties. That’s because a lot of people evidently have convinced themselves that if a politician would only take a strong stand proclaiming position that they themselves hold passionately it would carry the day.
But politics and the working of public opinion are clearly not so simple.
Who would have thought that the Bushites could have told all the lies they did and still 2/3 of the American public would have believed, on the eve of the 2004 election, that GW Bush is a man of integrity, that he is honest, and that he was doing a good job in fighting the “war on terror”? Who’d have believed that the Bushites could have combined such arrogance and evil and incompetence so manifestly and still managed to win re-election, or to keep it close enough to steal it?
Public opinion here is crucial. And, regreattably but clearly, truth and justice do not always win out in that court.
So when I read that NYTimes article I felt a responsibility to re-consider my plan to write that “Bring it On!” piece. I did this by consulting a couple of the people I know whose judgment in political matters I most trust. After talking with them, I was sufficiently reassured that I went ahead and wrote the piece.
I figured that the political effects were probably not easy to predict, that the truth remains our best weapon politically, that the resolution served to call attention to what the American people sorely need to look at, and that regardless of the short-term partisan effects it is important and beneficial for a voice to be raised in the Senate pointing to what is true and vital at this time when we have a president bent upon dismantling our Constitution.
And so I still believe.
At the same time, even since that NYTimes article, I’ve encountered other voices saying that the censure resolution helps, rather than hurts, the Bushites. For example, in contrast with that first article, in which the voices saying so were partisan Republicans like Limbaugh and Weyrich, a column in Newsweek by Eleanor Clift got my attention.
I’ve read and heard Eleanor Clift for many years, and she is as consistently partisan for the Democrats as just about anyone I can think of in that business. And here is how she began her Newsweek column
at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11882921/site/newsweek/:
“Republicans finally had something to celebrate this week when Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called for censuring George W. Bush. Democrats must have a death wish. Just when the momentum was going against the president, Feingold pops up to toss the GOP a life raft.”
Then yesterday I received an emailing from Carolyn Kay citing a New Republic columnist, Ryan Lizza, also politically sympathetic with the Democrats, saying that, “This week, Feingold’s censure petition has made that goal [of the Democrats taking back the Senate] just a little bit more difficult to achieve. What an ass.”
This is not the only view of things out there. On the Republican side, the Weekly Standard’s William Krystol said, “I think Feingold has succeeded in casting a big cloud over the President’s program.” And CNN’s William Schneider called Feingold’s move the “Political Play of the Week,” describing it as principled.
My strong gut feeling is that this is something we should pick up and carry forward with all our might. That’s why I went ahead and posted my piece.
At the same time, I believe there are a few things worth talking about here. The obvious question could be, “Just how does the censure resolution play politically?”
But my intuition says that this question does not have a single answer, because the answer probably depends on how the various players play out their roles in the battle. Think of the resolution as a battlefield, and as with most battles the outcome depends on how the different sides conduct their part of the fight.
Which leads to the second, and I think more important and practical, question: “By what means can those who support the resolution best conduct their side of the battle so that the outcome is advantageous to their side?”
And finally, if we were to assume that the censure resolution is not only right and righteous –which I think it obviously is– but also is (or could be made to be) politically advantageous for the anti-Bushite forces, the question arises: “What is the best way of understanding the clear belief on the part of most congressional Democrats (and apparently a good number of their politically-informed supporters) that the censure resolution is a loser for them?”
One can assume, I believe, that the Democratic office-holders who have run away from Feingold are deciding according to their own best calculations of how they might best win re-election. So if they are mistaken in those calculations, what is it that would account for such an error in judgment on the part of such highly-motivated, expert professionals?
So please feel free to address any of those questions.
My hope is that the discussion that unfolds here –especially of that second question, regarding the manner in which this battle should be fought– might prove useful to some anti-Bushite officeholders in high places.
March 21st, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Newsweek and New Republic Dems support the Dem leadership oligarchy rather than the rank and file. They promote the power interests of the ruling class who enforce their rule by media truth and power. So appealing to the power interests of rank and file Dems cause them trouble, since these two power interests conflict.
If rank and file opinion of the population supports Finegold, they will have to give at least a weak and tepid support to this resolution, although they will hate to do it. What the Bush-Lite Dems prefer to do is nothing, with a low profile, and let the Gops self-destruct. A censure motion will definitely help an eventual impeachment motion.
March 21st, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Ah the spins and turns and weavings of the human mind–DO THE RIGHT THING ALWAYS, and it works out for the best–eventually. Even if you lose (and then who’s to say a different strategy would have caused a different result), you have done the right thing and the people of America will eventually learn to discriminate between what is truly right and moral and what is false and hiding under a religious and so-called patriotic umbrella.
Bush broke the law–he deserves at the very least to be censured. It is the Congress’ job to uphold the Constitution and the law of the land.
Do the right thing–support the right and just and moral action.
March 21st, 2006 at 5:06 pm
We need to start paving the way for censure and impeachment now. If we wait for – hopefully – the Dems to take over the Senate, they won’t be in office until Jan. 2007, and then some of them may feel it isn’t worth it to start the effort to censure a president who will only be in office for two more years. Sadly, Dems are not known for their backbone.
The more people who hear about censure and impeachment efforts now, the more will come to think of those things as possible actions and worth supporting. If we can’t even take a strong stand against as harmful a president as Bush, I don’t know what we’re waiting for.
As to censure and impeachment efforts hurting Dems chances of getting elected, one of the reasons people vote GOP is that they have the courage to LEAD. The Dems are losing supporters, who are fed up with voting for Republican-lite candidates. Molly Irvins’ column in which she says she refuses to vote for Hillary Clinton is a good example, and I know other people who feel the same way. What do the Dems think is going to get them elected – by showing they are gutless and lacking in leadership?
The GOP took over by playing to their base. The Dems need to forget about people who still think Bush is right and concentrate on their base.
March 21st, 2006 at 5:46 pm
All of above considered, I say the Feingold move was a good one, the right thing to do, which everyone, Democrats, Republicans, Independents with any sense or decency left should get behind. Same for Conyers. If Bushists use to rally the Republicans it can only force more people in the end to see the truth at stake here and push this whole mess closer to resolving. As long as there is hope for America the fundamental violations of the Constitution cannot go on being blurred for anything approaching a majority. I think of the old saying “The mills of God grind slow but they grind exceeding fine.” They got Nixon in the end. They will get Bush.
D.Loye
March 21st, 2006 at 6:03 pm
The Dems’ reaction is totally beyond me. Maybe they’re so risk averse that their approach is “don’t rock the boat, W is falling apart with no help from us”? That’s not much to rally behind.
I guess there might be some fear that supporting the Constitution in time of “war” would highlight W’s muscular & bold willingness to defend American’s from TERROR by all means, technicalities like the Bill of Rights be damned…and that Russ F. would play into W’s hands by giving him an opportunity to launch an exposition of all the extreme steps W and his minions stand ready to take to defend the homeland. I’m still with Russ as his vision is of something like America and not a vision of an economic empire with no moral core.
March 21st, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Too much verbiage and quotes from people who never say anything decent. Rush Limbaugh indeed
What drivel from those find respectable people who have their head up the avenue. What is right is right regardless. The safety from tyrants is written into the Constitution to protect the country by Impeaching the “dictator”.
Geo. Bush broke the law of the land. Bush broke his oath to protect and defend the law of the land by trashing the Constitution.
Appeasement has been most distructive for the Democrats.
Any question of the right of a Senator to stand up for the country and
declare Impeachment is inverted appeasement of the most corrupt kind.
March 21st, 2006 at 6:14 pm
I particularly like Doug Long’s comment that, “The more people who hear about censure and impeachment efforts now, the more will come to think of those things as possible actions and worth supporting.”
Part of how I see this move is like a fable of Aesop’s about “The Boy and the Nettle.”
A BOY was stung by a Nettle. He ran home and told his Mother,
saying, “Although it hurts me very much, I only touched it
gently.” “That was just why it stung you,” said his Mother. “The
next time you touch a Nettle, grasp it boldly, and it will be
soft as silk to your hand, and not in the least hurt you.”
To which the moral sometimes given (by those who give a moral at the end of Aesop’s fables) is “Whatever you do, do with all your might.”
I think the more tentative the Democrats are with this, the more likely they are to get stung. But if they grasp boldly and with firmness of resolve this nettle of Bush’s phony and illegal ways of so-called “protecting us,” then I think the bogus defenses of the president will crumble in the manure that they truly are.
March 21st, 2006 at 8:35 pm
I think that if nothing else is gained, the censure process will put back on the table all of the issues that the Republican leadership likes to say is “behind us.” We should follow Bush’s mantra: repeat it, repeat it and repeat it, until the public gets it right.
This process will allow a revisiting of all of the issues, including before and after 9/11 that brought us to this sorry state. Some things need to be rehashed. Some things need to be learned for the first time. Like a clear explanation of the fall of the world trade center buildings. Everything needs to be put back on the table. Issue after issue, over and over again. For some in this country, who’ve gotten must of their news from Fox and Rush, this type of discussion may be the first time they have heard some of these things.
Most of the Dems are in trouble here, because they supported so much of what Bush has failed in, so they would not likely want to re-visit America’s sorry state of affairs and how we got here. But, everyone who’s supporting censure/impeachment isn’t in politics, just as Rush L. isn’t an elected official, but the standard bearer of the party, nevertheless.
Others outside of the beltway need to talk about this, not focusing on the censure process itself, and its inherent politics, but instead focus, on the untruths, part-truths, and down-right lies that necessitate this process. We now the Republicans wallow in ad hominem arguments; we don’t have to. We must stick to the facts as we know them, or want to find them out.
If Rush says, “you just hate Bush.” We say, what does that have to do with the thousands of Iraqis killed for no reason.” If Cheney says, “You’re spoil sports.” We say, “Tell that to Cindy Sheehan.” If Rice says, “You’re providing aid and comfort to the enemy.” We say, “Where’s the evidence that Iraq caused 9/11?” If the neo-cons say, “We should be behind our president.” We say, “Where is he? It was WMD one day, then democracy the next.” If they say, “But, we haven’t been attacked since invading Iraq.” We say, “In the last 2 administrations we were only attacked once, and that was when Bush was in office.”
Our message, no matter who’s delivering it needs to be consistent and persistent. What they say will be predictable: attacks on people and the Democratic party. What we say should be based on the facts, or our complaint of their omission. We, too need to stay the course until our mission is accomplished.
March 21st, 2006 at 8:53 pm
Andy, Good analysis. I agree.
March 21st, 2006 at 11:20 pm
If we don’t support censure, we become just like the lame DC Dems who are afraid to stand up for the Constitution, the people’s rights or anything that really matters. We must lead cause our leaders will not.
The censure movement should be about all the crap the Bush regime is responsible for: the deception and lies that got the Congress and most of America to support the war, the illegal wiretapping, the huge debt they have created, the unlawful outing of Valerie Plame for political purposes, the Katrina fiasco, the no-bid Iraqi contracts to their corporate buddies, the new Medicaid law that only benefits big pharma, the destruction of America’s international reputation, and on and on. The American people have to be clearly shown in big, bold letters how the Bush regime with the help of the Republican Congress has run this country into the ground. The censure movement is a good vehicle for that in an election year. It should be an election issue in every Congressional district in the country. Make the bastards take a stand. It could be a great rallying cry: “throw the bums who support Bush out in November.”
March 21st, 2006 at 11:26 pm
A note to Bruce Berlin, who says “The censure movement should be about all….”
I can imagine that all those things could feed into the energy surrounding the censure movement. But the actual resolution is –appropriately, I would say– worded to be about something rather specific, namely the illegalities involved with the warrantless wiretaps.
Appropriately, I would say, because the censure as a measure is about wrong-doing, about actual misconduct, and not about incompetence in matters like the Katrina fiasco, or the usual legal political corruptions like a Medicaid law that benefits big pharm.
Nonetheless, if your point is that all the ways that this administration has run the country into the ground can help inspire people to go after the Bushites for their lawlessness, I would agree with that.
March 22nd, 2006 at 1:58 am
Dr. Gadsden is right — we need to stay on message and repeat.
I think if we pursure this impeachment it will, indeed, be the first time many people have heard about some of the stuff Bush and his Bushettes have done. We need to restore truth to the media, and until we can buy it back, the only way we can get the true story in the media is to make it news.
March 22nd, 2006 at 6:42 am
we tend to focus on the personality of the moment and not on the issue. The Dems have not put language to the underlying issues and the gops have the superficial controlled and well manipulated in the press and in the unthinking minds of the american public. The world is at a crises point with the main problem fuelling all of this being uneven sharing of resources and the resulting economic disparity. The reactionary forces are going to hang on to the death and if the progressives and the world survive, can we put it all back together in a better way for all? Censure and impeachment at this point only feul the fires and its the repub’s fires that are burning these days, the dems can’t seem to gather the wood…but here the solution lies as wood is no longer what we need to feul and power a just world for all
March 22nd, 2006 at 11:43 am
Dear Andy and all,
I am a little surprised by the direction of your last post and the recent responses to it. (I’ve been away for a while.)
Unless I’m wrong, I’ve heard you arguing — very wisely, I thought — for:
1. looking at the real consequences of possible actions, not solely their “rightness”;
2. choosing a field of engagement where we are least likely to lose; and
3. the importance of winning over a significant majority of the population, who perhaps do not share our complete world view.
Based on those principles I heard you arguing for a strategy focusing on upholding checks and balances and the Constitution, affirmative principles with which few people are likely to disagree.
My opinion is that there may be ways to remain in greater alignment with your own principles and strategy.
Didn’t Sun Tzu say something like: The battle should be won before the first shot is fired?
Feingold’s resolution, tho perhaps morally “right,” is strategically non-optimal, in my opinion, for precisely the reasons you have enunciated. It will provoke a battle (as those you cite suggest) which we might win, but might lose.
The step that most people are ready to support, is a full investigation of Bush’s actions, of his circumvention of checks and balances, and of the wide-ranging absence of congressional constraints and oversight. This, I believe, is the call that should be pursued vigorously and courageously, and which leaves Senate and House Republicans with no legs to stand on.
Verdicts are rendered after evidence is presented. Feingold, I fear, has overplayed his hand by skipping this critical step. Those on the left may have seen enough convincing evidence, but many on the right have not. Some right-leaning people have indeed begun to take umbrage at Bush’s actions, but most of these are inclined to say: he meant well, or he just overdid it, or he was just trying to protect us, or he was sincere if misguided. These people would consider censure unnecessary, inappropriate, unpatriotic, supportive of the enemy, and harmful to the nation, the office, and our national pride. Only after more facts, lies, and manipulations, are laid bare — so that even more Republicans shudder at Bush’s motives and his means — only then would it be time to pursue censure. In the proper order, these are battles we are most likely to win. And, as you’ve said repeatedly, winning IS important!
I fear that many of us are still talking primarily/only to our “choirs.” Several comments asserted that the public will see, will be persuaded, etc. by enough insistence. Optimism is nice, but data is better. I think this is a crucial question: How many people have actually presented the facts and arguments to any right-leaning neighbors or relatives and won them over? If the answer is many, then fantastic! But if the answer is very few, then we need to be on guard against the same kind of myopia and over-reaching that ensnared the Republicans after 1994. Not everyone will respond as we’d like them to, especially under the influence of the right wing spin machine. And again, if we care about winning, if we care about who will be running the country in 2 or 4 or 8 years, the moral imperative, as I see things, is to look very carefully at how we affect people. Real people, like our neighbors.
A foolish teacher can try to force-feed her students material they are not ready for and — even if it is “true” — still create a lifetime distaste for math or science or whatever. I would not call this the moral thing to do. We need to know, understand, and yes, respect the people we hope to influence. Else we are likely to continue to be seen as those arrogant, righteous, negative, know-it-all lefties; and we will be playing perfectly into Carl Rove’s game plan.
March 22nd, 2006 at 11:50 am
A response to Eliot: Actually, I agree that Feingold’s resolution is not the optimal place to start.
I have argued that the place to start was not with any judgment, or even investigation, into the president’s CONDUCT, but rather to go after his constitutional claims, i.e. his defense. Hence my proposed first step would be a resolution that affirms the meaning of the Constitution as a system of co-equal branches with checks and balances, and specifically repudiates the administration’s bogus claims to unchecked power as “commander-in-chief.â€?
Then one could go after the conduct, with those claims already cleared away.
That’s what I have wanted to talk with Feingold and Conyers about.
But meanwhile, this censure resolution was put into play. And this battlefield became, whether ideal or not, the one presented. It seems to me better to fight that battle with vigor, and support, Feingold’s move, than to leave him unsupported.
And, with the country still largely ignoring the absolutely crucial issue of what’s being done to damage our system of government, this censure resolution has the extremely vital virtue of calling attention to the heart of the current crisis.
It might not be the best play, but that’s what the ball-carrier is running, and I think we ought to do some blocking for him.
(And by the way, in terms of its prejudging the issue, a) there really is not much room for doubt about the president’s having violated the law, as they’ve already admitted the basic facts, which the American Bar Association has said do constitute a violation of the FISA law (a felony, incidentally) and b) Feingold did stress his desire that the resolution be DEBATED, i.e. that all the questions pertaining to its appropriateness be discussed, and was not calling for it to be passed automatically without investigation and discussion.
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:21 pm
“By what means can those who support the resolution best conduct their side of the battle so that the outcome is advantageous to their side?�
To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.
Alexander Pope
English poet
To rule one’s anger is well; to prevent it is still better.
Tryon Edwards
American theologian & editor
Anger is never without an argument, but seldom with a good one.
Geogre Saville
Anger is a short madness.
Horatius
Roman poet
All err the more dangerously because each follows a truth. Their mistake lies not in following a falsehood but in not following another truth.
Blaise Pascal – French scientist, mathematician, physicist, philosopher, moralist & writer
The superior man understands what is right. The inferior man understands what will sell.
Confucius
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is slicked o’er with the pale cast of thought,
William Shakespeare
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.
Abraham Lincoln
Has it come to this?
March 22nd, 2006 at 1:15 pm
I can’t think of a way to illuminate these perspectives any further. They revolve around truth, attitude and resolution. This is my perspective. I could write over a thousand words time and time again but why? The larger context here is quite clear in my opinion. The enmity is all too palpable, the approach all too adversarial.
John K.
March 22nd, 2006 at 1:40 pm
A question for John Knotts: Do you believe, then, that enmity and an adversarial approach are NEVER called for?
In an earlier entry, months ago, I argued that in our polarized society one of the issues on which both sides are unbalanced concerns how to deal with opponents. People on the right are unbalanced in being TOO inclined to view opponents as enemies to be combatted. People on the liberal side of the divde are unbalanced in being TOO RELUCTANT to recognize when that is called for.
That entry is called “In dealing with opponents, liberals need not only the tools building bridges but also those of waging battle,” and is to be found at http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=34
Wisdom, as I see it, involves having both sets of tools in one’s toolbox, and having the judgment to know which is required in a given instance.
And in my view, with the Bushites in all-out assault against everything that stands in the way of their self-aggrandisement, which includes us and the Constitution and every framework of order that would restrain their doing whatever they please, this is one of those times when the the tactics (and the emotions) suitable for battle are altogether necessary and proper.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Much is being said on both sides. I’m not witnessing the liberal side as being too reluctant in viewing their opponents as enemies to be combated. I think it’s about being sucked into the absurdity. Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side. And The Side here is one of adversarial enmity. Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides.
In order to draw a limit to thinking, we should have to think both sides of this limit.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Austrian engineer & philosopher
John Knotts
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Repeating my earlier question to John Knotts: “Do you believe, then, that enmity and an adversarial approach are NEVER called for?”
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Enmity is never called for in my opinion. Opposition is not necessarily enmity. It’s merely made an occasion for enmity.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Response to John Knotts: If enmity is a feeling that leaves no room for compassion, then I would agree with your rejection of enmity. If enmity only implies a determination to defeat, then I disagree.
You do not, evidently, reject “opposition.” But you did criticize being “adversarial.” Is there some important difference, as you understand these.
To me, the crucial element here is the determination to defeat. “Sometimes,” as I wrote in an earlier piece, “it’s important to win.”
And this is one of those times.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Schmookler, to the first part of your last response: Enmity is defined as deep-seated, often mutual hatred. If it takes DEEP-seated hatred to win then I’m doing something wrong. The feeling of hatred is enough for me.
To the second part of your last response: A game can have many forms. Sometimes it’s partner vs. opponent. Sometimes it’s assistant/supporter v. adversary.
Perhaps we have different styles of how one wins or loses.
John K.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Diane Rehm had a show discussing the Censure motion (which a Newsweek poll says over 40% of Americans support); see http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/06/03/22.php#10205 to listen.
One point I noted was the assertion that Republicans have been far more effective than Democrats at making using their more radical voices to their advantage. In this case, Democrats could at least be using talk of Censure (hardly radical, but viewed that way) make talk of investigation seem more reasonable and moderate by comparison. But Censure isn’t going to happen in practice, nor is investigation likely, alas.
Supposedly the Watergate break-in was approved only after a variety of other much more extreme plans (I vaguely recall military helicopters and special-ops type actions) had been vetoed. The break-in plan seemed very reasonably by comparison, and so was approved. The only person in the room who questioned the decision was one who hadn’t been involved in rejecting the prior, more extreme proposals.
So, a smarter political strategy for Democrats might be a good-cop-bad-cop approach where they tacitly encourage some voices to be as passionate as they like, and use this as a lever to facilitate lesser measures.
I don’t know how this will all play out. It may be from a pure “playing the game to win” perspective the Democratic leaders are right–in the short run. But I also have the sense that unprincipled subservience to tactics over standing up for what you believe in may win the battle but lose the war, to use an unfortunate metaphor.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:53 pm
It’s putting your foot in the door – it’s starting a discussion – it’s getting out in the open the inconvenient facts that progressives have been choking on for 5+ years. We have to crack open the closely guarded gates that have been constructed by the bushite army of believers and protected by a press made up of cowards. Sen. Feingold could have chosen other law-breaking dealies we all know had been perpetuated on America by this corrupt and inept slog. He chose carefully, with the illegality this time being so in our face it would affect us all. Bush is actually on tape lying about wiretapping needing to be authorized. In his own words, he lied. What more does it take to convict this schmuck? That so many ‘democrats’ were either mute, or worse, critical of Sen. Feingold, made me sick. It was the usual suspects – Leiberman, Clinton, Biden – all seekers of the ‘big prize”. Not a one of them deserves our respect – certainly not our vote! The disgusting lack of regard for our laws, our rights, our troops, our planet’s health, our global reputation and our tax monies fraudulently used to benefit only those who need it least, all these realities do not get covered and are generally disregarded. Sen. Feingold’s call for censure could get all these impeachable offenses a good airing in public and is a great first step in the fight of our lifetime. He deserves our respect and the support of his party for putting his neck on the line to give a wake-up call to America. We all know , on a gut level , that we’re on a really bad course with these neo-con-artists in charge. Sometimes it just takes that one extra drop of water to start a flood. We’ve just gotta keep pouring!
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:55 pm
To John Knotts: An earlier remark of yours –”Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides”– raises the question of whether the underlying issue in this discussion between us, which seems to be at the level of how to deal with an opponent, is whether the Bushites and their opponents (like me, and many others who join in here) are to be seen as more or less equivalent actors in a troubled system, each having its good and bad points, or whether this is a situation where the opposition is substantially one between good and evil, or at least the much better and the much worse.
So, rather that continue to discuss what might be only a derivative issue, let me ask you to express to what extent you do or do not share with me the view of the Bushite regime as a dangerous and dark and destructive force virtually unprecedented among the ruling powers in American history.
March 22nd, 2006 at 4:15 pm
I stand behind what I’ve said thus far. I cannot speak to the extent of this regimes detriment in American history because it’s off focus from what we’ve been discussing. What I’ve explained in regards to this approach is not a derivative issue to me. By “thisâ€? approach I mean how I disagree with you about the enmity and adversarial elements at play. It is at the root of what I believe to be knowledge and character. I think my concept and style of winning and losing has been made quite clear here as it pertains to knowledge and character.
John K.
March 22nd, 2006 at 7:46 pm
As John Knott is content that he has made his beliefs clear, I will leave him be. But I would like to use this opportunity to articulate something of my own position regarding how the nature of the opponent determines what kind of approach to that opponent is appropriate.
Throughout the 1990s, I worked on building bridges between right and left. Some of the same audiences who hear me speak nowadays about “The Concept of Evil” heard me in the 1990s give a talk entitled “Beyond Dispute.” The thrust of that talk was that neither side has a monopoly on the truth –indeed, that both sides were tending to call “truth” what was really only a half-truth– and that we are called upon to bridge the polarization by dialogue to seek a higher wisdom in which the half-truths are integrated.
I still believe that between the basic worldviews of liberalism and conservatism (or however one wants to label the ideologies that cluster on the right and on the left), that remains true.
But meanwhile, something has happened to one side of America’s polarized society. Those who have taken over the leadership –or misleadership– of the “conservatives” are (at least substantially) of a different nature from at least a great many of the people they lead. (I heard yesterday that only 45 % of self-described American conservatives now see GW Bush as a conservative.) Besides not being who they declare themselves to be, these so-called conservative and traditionalist Bushites are also animated by very dark and destructive spirits.
It is these rulers –and not nearly so much their followers– whom I regard as the opponent. And because I do not see the two sides as both committed to some concept of the good, unlike the polarized sides that concerned me in the 1990s; and because I see the other side as engaged in a take-no-prisoners all-out assault on everything I hold dear; I no longer see the process of engagement as being one of dialogue, nor do see the opponent as someone with whom good compromise is possible.
The nature of the opponent makes winning and losing the two choices, and the nature of victory is to take from them to power to impose their dark pattern on everything they touch.
This has nothing to do with hating them, or wishing them ill, or wanting something punitive done to “avenge” their wrongs. It has to do with reading the nature of the choices, and doing what’s necessary to see that good prevails.
Even so committed a Christian as Dietrich Bonhoeffer found that, in war-time Nazi Germany, the course of action he felt compelled to take was adversarial in the extreme: his life ended with his being executed by the Nazis for his role in an attempt to assassinate the Fuerhrer.
What we’re talking about here is a resolution to declare that it is not OK for our Leader to simply disregard and violate the law.
March 22nd, 2006 at 7:56 pm
First of all, Andrew, I thought both this piece and the preceding one were absolutely right on target. It could very well be the case that what we are seeing in some of the “anti-censure” pieces is more Republican spin. I’m highly skeptical of Eleanor Clift’s motivation for the Newsweek piece. The New York Times article was vilified as Republican propaganda on several left-leaning blogs.
Whether or not Senator Feingold has chosen the best method by calling for censure of the president, may be debatable, however the call for censure is the RIGHT and JUST thing to do. History will show this to be true. Americans can plainly see that Senator Feingold is a reasonable human being , NOT one of those “foaming-at-the-mouth extremists,” if we are to believe Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly, (and why do we give those cretons ANY credibility at all?)
How low do Bush’s numbers have to go? Consider the following excerpt from Sam Parry’s article:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/032206a.html
State after State Repudiates Bush
By Sam Parry
March 23, 2006
“George W. Bush’s admission that he expects to leave the Iraq War mess behind for his successor to clean up underscores why he is facing a historic collapse in polls across the country, with tracking surveys now showing him with net negatives exceeding 20 percentage points in more than half the states.
According to SurveyUSA.com, which tracks Bush’s approval ratings in all 50 states, Bush’s support in the March readings plunged to double-digit net negative numbers even in some staunchly Republican states: -12% in South Carolina, -17% in Indiana, -18% in Virginia, and -19% in Tennessee. In Bush’s home state of Texas, public disapproval topped approval by 14 percentage points.”
I’m completely flummoxed as to why the Democrats do not pick up the ball which has been perfectly positioned, and run like hell.
I think Joe Lockhart has it all nailed down:
The following is an interview with former Bill Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart. ( from AmericanProgress 3-23-2006)
“MEET A CLINTONITE WHO ISN’T CAUTIOUS. People around the Clintons are supposed to be too cautious to embrace Russ Feingold’s censure resolution, right? Well, it turns out that one Clintonite is not at all frightened of it: former Bill Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart.
Lockhart speaks out in an interview with Chris Lehmann in his entertaining piece on Feingold in this week’s New York Observer. Lehmann writes:
[Lockhart] sees no political downside to Senator Feingold’s proposal—and likewise sees much desperation in the Republican spin that it would be another self-inflicted Democratic wound that would haunt the minority party in the fall elections. All the G.O.P. bluster about an early vote on the Feingold proposal to smoke out weak-sister Democrats for elimination in November, Mr. Lockhart said, “is complete nonsense.â€?
He said: “One simple rule of politics is that the more ferociously you’re pushing your talking points, the less you believe in them. The Republicans jumping so hard on this tells you that they believe they’re in a really vulnerable position—that this issue is not the winner they thought it was.â€?
Whatever you think of censure, Lockhart’s hitting on a really critical point that can’t be emphasized enough. Reporters and commentators have grown conditioned to believe Republicans when they say an issue’s a political winner for them — mainly because Democrats too often act as if they’re convinced they’re going to lose. When Karl Rove threw down the gauntlet in that speech about NSA wiretapping, few if any commentators even thought to imagine that Rove might be bluffing, even though it was perfectly likely that he was trying to psych out moderate Dems and get them to break ranks. And of course, some moderate Dem thinkers immediately followed Rove’s script.
The point is that Rove knew he could count on such folks to do this. And when Feingold floated censure, Republicans immediately — and very confidently — tried to force a vote on it, because they knew they could count on Dems to reveal a craven fear of losing and otherwise project a general aura of indecisiveness. More and more Dem strategists are arguing that Dems need to stop tripping over their own caution every single time the GOP says they’ve got a winner on their hands — after all, the Republicans can always be counted on to say that, regardless of whether they even believe it — but it’s especially refreshing to hear a Clintonite saying so.”
–Greg Sargent
It is very simply, time for the Democrats, as well as intelligent Americans to make a choice- will they follow Russ Feingold’s courageous lead or let it play out without lifting one hypocritical finger… There is no way to avoid “enmity and adversarial elements,” when our current government has been hijacked by the certifiably insane.
March 22nd, 2006 at 8:02 pm
To John Knotts: You see, to me, this is a struggle between good and evil. Whatever the administration and their supporters have done, said, instigated, tried to do doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to me that they think what they are doing is right and good. What matters is what has been the result of real actions. My people in this country are hurting; we are dying. The people of Iraq are suffering because of what my country is doing. I can’t live without something to stop this madness.
I like plain talking (writing). Say what you mean and mean what you say. I’m not an intellectual; I’m just a hillbilly from Tennessee. I do know right from wrong. What we must do to stop this insanity and evilness can be debated, but that it is insane and evil is not in question. I, personally, salute Russ Finegold. As soon as I heard his statement to the Senate, I sent him an e-mail expressing my support.
The worst evil isn’t especially in doing the evil; it is sitting and doing nothing and letting it happen. I for one will not go down without a fight. I have spent my entire life championing the expansion of civil rights, assisting all folks in striving for a better life, and protecting our beautiful world. I do not intend to change that. ‘Nuff said.
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:06 pm
In response to the first part in your last statement, which you said, “As John Knott is content that he has made his beliefs clear, I will leave him be.â€? I say, Andy Schmookler, I’m satisfied and far from content. I admire your commitment and tenacity to see good prevail but are you comparing the nature of this opponent to the Nazis? That is a very bold statement here. So you’re saying that declaring it not OK for our Leader to simply disregard and violate the law is as urgent a matter as the Christian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s course of action for adversarial in the extreme vis-à -vis Adolph Hitler? The second edition, if you will, of my compendium of quotes.
Mathematics was born and nurtured in a cultural environment. Without the perspective which the cultural background affords, a proper appreciation of the content and state of present-day mathematics is hardly possible.
R. L. Wilder
Those of little faith mistake local cloud cover for general darkness. Keeping spiritually intact results in our keeping precious perspective by seeing “things as they really are.” (Jacob 4:13)
Neal Maxwell
American religious leader
Too much pessimism has led too many men into making serious mistakes. And perhaps part of our pessimism comes because we are too close to ourselves to see in proper perspective.
Richard L. Evans
American religious leader
A Systems Engineer saw a new perspective on his career: Though we think of ourselves as problem solvers our real mission is to seek opportunities.
Unknown
The ethics of excellence require a sense of perspective. Look at the big picture. If you live for the moment, do you mortgage the future? What happens if you put your reputation at risk . . . and lose the bet?
Price Pritchett
American psychologist, writer & entrepreneur
For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us.
Donald Williams
US Astronaut
And finally, you say, “The nature of the opponent makes winning and losing the two choices, and the nature of victory is to take from them to power to impose their dark pattern on everything they touch.� I say, success is following the pattern of life one enjoys most.
That she won the game startled me cold. The way she won, the pattern of her thought on the chessboard, charmed me warm again and then some.
Richard Bach
American author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:18 pm
My experience is that the simple truth holds amazing power and that we get sidetracked and waste all kinds of energy when we try to judge and measure the impact and effect of acts such as Feingold’s truthtelling ahead of time instead of simply getting behind them and letting the truth take us where it will.
We get so caught up in scheming and judging and assessing intellectually what will happen if we do this or that that we totally miss the fact that truth is flowing beneath our feet and that, if we just step into it, it will sweep us on its own wild ride to exactly where we need to go.
So much of life is counterintuitive. In this case, it seems impossible that a resolution supported by just three senators could have the power to create real change or accomplish the ultimate purpose of turning the tide in this country.
But that is just what I believe. There are ongoing ripples from this (and from every other instance where people have stood up and told the truth) that we have no idea of–the truth is that powerful.
Look what happened when one woman decided to demand the truth from President Bush about why her son had to die for a lie. She didn’t set out to galvanize the antiwar movement or become a household name; she simply chomped down on the truth like a bulldog and refused to let it go.
What if she had sat down with Democratic consultants, the media, and nonesoblind.org participants to discuss the feasibility and likely outcomes of simply setting up camp outside Bush’s ranch and demanding the truth? She would have been laughed out of Texas.
What if Jack Murtha would have polled his caucus about whether or not he should speak his conscience and demand that the truth be told about the reality of the quagmire in Iraq?
What about those who leaked the truth to the Washington Post about the CIA’s secret prisons abroad? Or those who leaked the Downing Street memo? Or those who revealed Bush’s illegal wiretapping program?
What I am seeing is a pattern of individuals, one by one, standing up and speaking the truth. They get shouted down, excorciated, ignored–but the scent of truth lingers and begins to build on itself.
Just look at the growing group of neoconservatives and war hawks who are now saying, “We were wrong about Iraq.”
Each person who tells the truth makes it just a little easier for the next person, and the next.
Evenutally the truth becomes a tidal wave impossible to stop.
Trying to blindly peer into the future and determine what act of truth will cause what effect is not only an act of futility but it takes energy and focus away from simply honing in and joining that truth–from wherever the truth comes.
My view is, “Hey, Russ Feingold put this out there. It may appear to have no chance to succeed in any traditional sense, but, because it resonates so strongly to my sense of what’s true, it has to have some kind of power, whether I can see it yet or not. Therefore I wholeheartedly endorse it.”
March 22nd, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Response to N: I am with you in believing in the power of the truth. I also agree that it is difficult to know just how people standing up for the truth will ramify in the world. But from these it does NOT follow, in my view, that we can responsibly follow the invariant rule, “Speak the truth and don’t try to make any judgments about what the consequences will be.”
People also like to believe that doing the right and principled thing always serves the good. But the world doesn’t work so simply. And I do deeply believe that we have a responsibility to make our best judgments about whether our actions will help or hurt the cause of goodness.
Nonetheless, all that being said, my main message for a year and a half has been that the best way of defeating a regime that has built its power on the moral lie is to tell the moral truth in a powerful way.
And I still do believe that this is the best path for America to take, to give America its “the Emperor has no clothes” realization. But I don’t want to get lazy and not be open to evidence that confirms or disconfirms my conviction that the moral truth is our most effective weapon.
March 22nd, 2006 at 11:42 pm
To John Knott’s latest posting: I asked you earlier whether you shared my assessment of the unprecedented darkness and destructiveness of this Bushite regime, and you responded, “I cannot speak to the extent of this regimes detriment in American history because it’s off focus from what we’ve been discussing.” I took this, and your comment about the issue we were discussing as not being “derivative,” as meaning that your views about how to deal with opponents were not based on your assessment of the nature of those opponents.
I have come back and said that for me it is quite otherwise: some opponents I seek to build bridges with, others I seek to defeat.
Now you’ve come back and questioned me about the meaning of my bringing in mention of Bonhoeffer’s way of opposing the Nazis. My purpose was to establish that if the opponent is dark enough, even a man like Bonhoeffer feels a responsibility to be very adversarial. The only comparison I have in mind with our situation is simply this: the Bushite regime is dark enough that its defeat should be our goal. I still don’t know if that statement is evidence of “enmity,” as you define it, but surely it is adversarial.
And from the nature of your challenge to me on bringing in Bonhoeffer, aside from your apparently reading into my statement what is not stated or implied, it now does seem that you do not regard the Bushite threat as a particularly urgent matter. And that leaves me to wonder once again whether, if you agreed with me about the depth of the danger you would also still take the same position against acting in an adversarial way.
March 23rd, 2006 at 1:54 pm
I received this in my email this morning from MoveOn.org, there is also an online petition supporting Feingold.
“Senator Feingold’s resolution to censure President Bush for breaking the law is resonating with Americans across the country. With more than 400,000 of us signed onto the petition urging them to support his resolution, Congress is faced with a powerful call for accountability.
In response, the Republican National Committee is already on the attack, running ads accusing Senator Feingold of being “more interested in censuring the President than protecting our freedom.”1 They can’t defend President Bush’s lawbreaking, so they’re trying to intimidate dissent by changing the subject.
We need to demonsrate that we’re behind Senator Feingold so the media knows how many of us support holding the president accountable for breaking the law. Can you take a moment to write a letter to the editor of your local paper? Our tool makes it easy, all you have to do is click below:
http://political.moveon.org/lte/lte_t.html?zip=94952
March 23rd, 2006 at 2:57 pm
Part of the core that lies within the liberal nature of America is the talent and wisdom to appeal to common sense ethics, individual rights and/or moral conduct. Let me repeat, the talent and wisdom to appeal to common sense ethics, individual rights and/or moral conduct, which is the essence of the Constitution. When political theater is seen through the lens of extreme incorrigibility, which it is, thought processes and rationales for solution take the path of least resistance. Whether this is or is not truly an incorrigible period in our history is beside the point. I happen to believe it is. That being said, the good teacher doesn’t dash to the telephone to call the parents of the out of control child. Nor should she/he “trainâ€? or peddle lessons in the same vein, which created chaos in the first place. Nor should any body ensconce a bad situation in provocations that seek rigid and simple interpretations of the law. In 2006 a resolution that repudiates bogus claims to unchecked power as commander-in-chief is like trying to convict a celebrity of murder, there’s simply too much material for hype in the media. Not to mention the most important factor that entirely dismisses this approach, which is the systematic breakdown of congressional oversight over the last decades. This virtually forgotten exercise in protocol has consistently served to erode and finally culminate in a particular administrative tyranny (yes, primarily Bush and the like). But this doesn’t suddenly give carte blanche or karmic justification to a complicit general body politic that has been sleeping with the enemy. You can’t now say ‘let’s cut off the nose to spite the face.’ The reality is that these ways have supplanted any semblance of resolution now being sought. We inherited this situation over time. As bad as it is, the evil genie did not morph out of thin air four or five years ago. This is a desperate situation that yearns for a dynamic starting point in place of projecting the human race as afraid of nothing, willing to rush through every crime. What would the founding fathers think of this approach which seeks to defend its valor and honor by surprise censures and guerilla warfare court hearings? Logic is not sitting on ones hands and doing nothing. Nor is higher law of the Constitution simply a rulebook to be used and studied during suspended play. No matter how blindly loyal and jingoistic, no matter how huddled or humiliated, no matter how divided the public is, we must think and lead different and recognize that these old modes of reconciliation and deliberation are comfortable, familiar and safe but severely impractical. To use an old saying, “A ship is safe and looks good docked in the harbor but that’s not what it was built for.â€? I’m not as confident as some of you are in putting my hopes in the hands of such a playing field, within these conditions and of rather desperate methods. To Andy: I hope this answers your question about the depth of danger and “particularâ€? urgent threat I regard the Bush agenda as being. Given all that has been said, I think you would agree that our difference in opinion comes down to how we choose to win with respect to this specific situation. Or the most viable direction that should be taken. I want us out of this nightmare just as much as you and all your supporters here do too. Good luck at the Washington Ethical Society’s ActForGood Group engagement.
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime you should dwell.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
English physician & writer of Sherlock Holmes mysteries
Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
George Carlin
American commedian & movie actor
March 28th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Andy, in response to YOUR response to my post, I would say, Yes, make judgments. Yes, use your head to see, to the best of your ability, what makes sense—but when weighing a decision, truth must always be the trump card, not political expediency, especially when there is considerable doubt about the outcome.
Failure to do this is why the Democrats are so incredibly ineffective and weak. They have forgotten how to follow what’s true and instead focus all their energies on trying to guess how each little action will affect or not affect them politically.
Hilary Clinton is a prime example of this. She thinks and thinks about every little thing that comes her way, calculating this, calculating that. She has tremendous intellect, but she closes herself off to a whole realm of information that would otherwise inform her if she were to primarily allow her moral instincts to lead her political instincts rather than vice versa.
The Republicans also operate this way—it is the only way our political system knows how to operate. What prompted me to respond to your original post in the first place is that it echoes that same ineffectual, self-defeating pattern.
We cannot change the system by parroting it. We have to shock it into transformation by just cutting the crap and speaking our truth, the best we know how.
You said, “People also like to believe that doing the right and principled thing always serves the good. But the world doesn’t work so simply.â€?
I disagree. I do believe that doing the right and principled thing always serves the good. It is not that the world doesn’t work so simply, it is that we are not omniscient enough to see how indeed it is that simple.
You are in essence saying we humans are big enough to see how the world works, and I would say there are many, many layers of complexity about which we have no clue. That is a big part of the challenge we took on in coming here to be human—to act as best we know how without ever seeing the full picture.
I applaud your commitment to integrity; it is what makes this site a welcome oasis in an era of such fear and distortion. It seems to me we are simply at different places as to the amount of bandwidth we give to intuition and inner guidance versus intellectual judgment.