After years of playing the victim, or taking sometimes solitary, albeit ineffectual protest stands against the GOP juggernaut, finally a Democrat has make a positive, pro-active move in opposition.
Will it be successful? Who knows, probably not by the looks of things. By getting the issue out there and measuring the support it garners, however, puts the hierarchy of the Democratic Party that "the times, they are a-change-in."
In a town addicted to kabuki dances and puppet theater, the censure resolution brings reality, and the brutal consequences of indulging in fantasy out in the open. Every Senator, even enablers like Bill Frist know that if the Senators could vote their conscious, maybe by secret ballot instead of their position being subject to the predictable mudslinging that traditionally skews congressional action in favor of self-preservation ahead of the public good, the idea of putting the President on notice that he's gone too far would gain overwhelming support.
Certainly one of the main reasons they went so far against Bill Clinton was because they could count. Never was there any question that they had the votes, let alone the legal justification to remove Clinton from office. Nevertheless, they went forward with their Dog-And-Pony show. It was captivating entertainment -- but the real power games, the real decisions in Washington don't occur on the Senate floor in front of cameras, but in the back of lobbyists' limos.
So it was with Nixon. And the same bean counters are there today.
Majority Leader Frist and White House Spokes-Puppet Scotty McManiquin want to label this nothing more than a political stunt.
News Flash: They're right.
Why impeach a President if you don't have the votes to remove him? To further the political ambitions of those directing the play, of course. No question that it did Lindsay Graham's career wonders. These guys became household names. In putting up a dogged defense against the impeachment sideshow, Chuck Schumer's career was fast-tracked as well.
None of it, none of the ridiculously long and expensive investigation of Clinton's marital infidelity had one damn thing to do with making this nation a better place. Nothing. It had everything to do with the petty power game that masquerades as our representative republic.
They never did and knew they never would have the votes to remove Bill Clinton from office. They did, however, have the votes to censure him. One man made the difference, Russ Feingold.
Feingold was the only Democrat who voted to give the evidence against Bill Clinton a fair hearing. With him on board the GOP was assured to defeat a cloture vote. Like his sole stand on the Patriot Act 1.0, he has built a reputation for acting on principle rather than politics and self-interest.
Not to diminish the fact that I sincerely believe that is how all of our representatives should behave, it's still a stunt.
Feingold didn't introduce a censure motion in the Senate as Schumer and the Dems in the House did as an alternative to impeachment. Indeed, if the prospect of the impeachment stage-show were not looming and censure were the only thing on the table, both houses of Congress should have approved it by a nine to one margin, but the real vote would have gone down party lines -- in exactly the opposite way censure of Clinton was defeated. (See below for update)
They weren't serious about censure then. Certainly part of that had to do with the fact that what the President was accused of wasn't all that serious. They weren't serious about impeachment either, or they would have counted the votes and called it a day before the case got out of the House Judiciary Committee. When they counted the votes in 1974, Nixon called it a day.
We all know of course, as does every US Senator, that at the very least the crimes of the Bush White House are censure worthy. What they also know, that we only understand on an instinctive level, is that ad libbing is not something Washington politicians are prepared to do. Certainly Bill Frist kept to his script, opposing His Royal Bushness helps our enemies. The rest of the Democractic Party has yet to agree on their lines or who should play which part.
And they're right. They know they can pander to the liberal wing of the party, just as they've been accused of doing to minorities for years, and ignore us.
Who else are we going to vote for? Republicans?
As long as they cower, just enough; and act strong, just enough -- they're hoping against hope that the pissed-off left (who aren't going to vote against them and are too active to stay home) won't convince the independents and moderates to once again shun the Party.
To be sure there will be Republican blood-letting if we get a majority in one of the congressional chambers this November. But we're going to eat our own either way -- win or lose -- because Russ Feingold has pointed a bright spotlight on the Democrat's so-called leadership. He stood by himself against Patriot Act I, He was one of ten against Patriot Act II. It looks like he's at least got Minority Leader Ried with him as well as Iowa's Harkin and probably, if push came to shove, at least another 15 Democratic Senators brave enough to vote their conscious -- certainly none of whom are facing reelection this year or have presidential ambitions, but you can't have everything.
The tide is changing, though.
UPDATE: It looks like Kevin Drum and I are of the same mind on this, that it's all for show. That's always good to see. Misery does love company. Kevin reminds us, well actually Elton Beard pointed out that there was a post-impeachment Clinton censure motion in the Senate introduced by Diane Feinstein, which (Ta Dah!) went right down party lines.
