Censure remains popular

Am I being a broken record? Am I just banging on my drum (as a leader in the drum-circle left) until it breaks? Is it just an unreasonable obsession? I don't know, but I'm going to keep doing this until the right Cheddarsphere recognizes that Russ Feingold is solidly in the mainstream of American political thought. From the LA Times and Bloomberg (.pdf):

Q40. As you may also know, a U.S. Senator has valled for a Senate resolution to censure George W. Bush, which is a formal expression of disapproval, but does not carry any legal consequences. The Senator claims it was illegal for Bush to authorize government agencies to use electronic surveillance to monitor American citizens without a court warrant. What do you think? Do you think that George W. Bush should be censured by the Senate for this, or not?

Yes, censure 46
No, don't censure 45

(via myDD)

Among Democrats (remember, the right says that Russ is way on the left fringe), censure has support 3-1. A solid majority of independents--53%--support it, too.

The full poll results make for good reading, if you're bored, including questions about who can best handle the major problems facing the country, and who people want to vote for this fall.

Censure still a mainstream idea

It's going to break the hearts of all my conservative readers, but their contention that support for Russ Feingold's censure motion is the exlusive purview of the drum-circle left remains unfounded. I noted it here, when a poll showed support for censure at 46%; I did again here, when another poll showed support at 42%. Now the new ABC/ Washington Post poll shows support for censure at a solid 45%:

The depth of public dissatisfaction with Bush and the highly partisan nature of the criticism are underscored by public attitudes toward efforts by some in Congress to censure him or impeach him for his actions as president.

Democratic and Republican congressional leaders view both scenarios as remote possibilities. Still, more than four in 10 Americans--45 percent--favor censuring or formally reprimanding Bush for authorizing wiretaps of telephone calls and e-mails of terrorism suspects without court permission. Two-thirds of Democrats and half of all independents, but only one in six Republicans, support censuring Bush, the poll found.

Last month, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) introduced a resolution in the Senate to censure Bush. A majority of Americans, 56 percent, said his move was driven more by politics than by principle.

I included that last part, knowing that if I didn't, it would be the first club trotted out to beat down my point. I say, so what? At least 11% of people polled seemingly don't care if the move to censure Bush for his disregard of a law that makes a felony out of exactly what he's admitted doing* is political. It may be that Russ is capitalizing on the matter for his own gain, but it's still apparently the right move in people's minds.

* And if anyone still thinks this "domestic spying" scandal isn't actually domestic should think again.

Feingold decidedly in the middle

The full version of the story noted just below about the ads running against Russ Feingold brings in the Newsweek poll on censure:

In a nationwide Newsweek Poll of registered voters conducted March 16 and 17, 42% supported censure and 50% opposed it. Among Democrats, 60% supported censure and 30% opposed.

What was that about the far-left of the far left again? A majority of Democrats and a sizable chunk of everybody in general seem on board; that's hardly fringe.

And the people up north seem to be in favor of censure, too:

While Feingold's censure bid caused a commotion inside the Washington Beltway and on the ever-expanding blogosphere, it was just one of many issues brought up by his constituents, who deal with real-life concerns such as farming, education, health care and Social Security.

But when Feingold made his case to censure the president, he received sustained applause from a crowd of nearly 100 people at the Belle Plaine Community Center in Shawano County.

Again, a crowd of people from the not exactly "liberal oasis" areas of the state--Madison or Milwaukee--showing support for the idea of forcing the president to follow the law. This is not the fringe!

Can you all stop saying that now?

Some Briefs

• Following up more on Feingold and censure, I'll note this story from today's paper:

  Doubts about the legality of the government's once-secret domestic surveillance program can be found among both liberal and conservative scholars and on both sides of the aisle in Congress.
  
  In other words, unlike his proposal for censure, Feingold's claims about "illegal wiretapping" are well within the mainstream of congressional debate on the issue.

  
  
• Barbara Miner, in this week's Shepherd Express, has a good rundown of why the recent Milwaukee voucher expansion bill is a bad deal:

  The winners and losers are clear in the deal that lifts enrollment at Milwaukee’s voucher schools.
  
  Winners include Republicans, voucher schools and eager entrepreneurs hoping to open a private school regardless of whether they know anything about education.
  
  Losers include Milwaukee taxpayers, the Milwaukee Public Schools and anyone who cares about public accountability for tax-funded programs.

  
  
• Joel McNally wonders if Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's bad fiscal management is merely incompetence, or could it be sabotage?

  Usually, when a politician seeks higher office, he attempts to portray himself as some sort of financial miracle worker whose management success has earned him the right to take on ever more daunting economic challenges.
  
  Instead, Walker compares his operation of county government for the past four years to the growing financial disaster facing the nation's airline industry. [. . .] Walker's announcement is particularly amusing because, until now, the centerpiece of Walker's campaign for governor is that as county executive he has submitted a tax freeze budget every year.
  
  Well, guess what happens when a conservative politician freezes taxes year after year while the costs of government continue to go up? Looming financial insolvency verging on bankruptcy. You can dismiss it as incompetence if you want. But what if it's something even more diabolical? What if it's actually a clever plot to destroy government from within?

  
  
• Conservatives can say what they want about "Bush Derangemnet Syndrome," but Barbara O'Brien has been tracking Liberal Derangement Syndrome.

Rick, Russ, and Censure

As promised, I want to look at Shark and Shepherd blogger Rick Esenberg's Saturday Op-Ed written to provide response--or, more accurately, balance--to Russ Feingold's essay defending his call for President Bush's censure, which itself was a response to the Journal Sentinel editorial I wrote about here.

It isn't that I think Russ can't defend himself--I'm sure he could--but he's busy being a US Senator somewhere, and I'm sitting here trying to avoid housework and paper grading. And Rick's essay, which is about as clearly stated a case as any I've seen, misses some points and raises disturbing questions. Here's how he starts:

Sen. Russ Feingold wants to censure the president for authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless surveillance of communications between people in the United States and people abroad believed to be al-Qaida operatives. In a spasm of oversimplification, Feingold likes to call this "domestic" wiretapping.

In light of its rarity and the potential harm to national security during time of war, censure should be limited to the most clear and serious presidential abuses. This case isn't even close.

"Domestic" may be one side's spin, sure, but it is not inaccurate: The NSA is listening in on calls where at least one party is in the United States, even a US citizen. Domestic means in the United States. Moreover, I have not seen a good argument how censure poses harm to national security. It's one of those standard tropes (like, "don't criticize the president in wartime") that Bush supporters have been using for four years to shut up any opposition. It is dangerously close to Dick Cheney's observation from election season 2004 that electing John Kerry would have left us less safe somehow. I don't buy it.

The more serious argument is that the NSA program violates the requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Whether this is so is highly technical and turns on facts that have not been made public. Even if NSA surveillance is outside its terms, FISA contains a huge exception. Surveillance that is not conducted within its framework is permitted if "otherwise authorized by Congress."

Shortly after 9-11, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force [AUMF], stating that the president should use "all necessary and appropriate force" against international terrorism.

This is the old "AUMF" overrides FISA. First of all, I did a search of the FISA statute, and did not find the phrase Rick quotes. I'm not saying it's not there; I just couldn't find it with my eyes or the search tools I have available to me. I did, however, find this gem somewhere else: "the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of such Act, and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted." Did you catch that? The law requires FISA be followed to intercept communications in the US. I think it is reasonable to look at that, and look at how blatantly the president has admitted to skirting the law, and see that there has been a serious violation.

In addition, the AUMF was indeed not intended by Congress to authorize violations of FISA. This is one of those "after-the-fact" excuses I noted here, and this notion, in fact, is specifically belied both by members of Congress and the administration's actions at the time it was passed. But Rick goes on, this time into the courts:

In Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld, a Supreme Court majority held that the Authorization for Use of Military Force allowed the detention of American citizens as enemy combatants, overriding another law that said this may not be done unless "otherwise authorized by Congress."

While the resolution says nothing about detentions (as it says nothing about surveillance), the court reasoned that detaining the enemy is a traditional incident of waging war and thus was included within the Congress' broad approval of the use of force.

This is a bit of spin, too, as the government actually lost that case--the majority opinion held that the US had to follow constitutional guidelines regarding the detention of US citizens captured in war. In addition, the AUMF explicitly states that the president's war powers, under the War Powers Resolution, are in force; however, "even the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties," the Hamdi court noted. I'm pretty sure the Constitution says something about "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

After a digression about World War Two movies, Rick continues:

Even if we could conclude that the NSA program violates the terms of FISA, the inquiry as to its legality is not over. The Constitution makes the president the commander in chief of the armed forces. If that power includes the right to monitor communications between Americans and enemy agents abroad, then any attempt to limit that authority, including FISA, would be unconstitutional.

As for FISA's constitutionality, the federal government has had nearly 30 years to challenge it. In fact, for 25 of those 30 years, presidents--including Reagan and the first President Bush--not only did not challenge the law, but did not violate it, either. Still, if the current President Bush believes FISA unconstitutional, the right choice is not to violate the law, but to change or challenge it. That he chose to disregard it smacks not of concern for national security, but of arrogance. More from Rick:

[W]e know that some in Congress have been informed of the details, and few, if any, are calling for the program's suspension. There has been no serious attempt to pull its funding. In other words, even those who want to criticize the president for the program don't want him to stop.

Telling only "some" in Congress about the surveillance was itself a violation of the law, and Rick maybe does not remember that at least two of those told (and as few as eight, of 535, may have been informed) objected--Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (more from Think Progress today). Those told about the program could say nothing--not to propose cutting its funding, not to speak out to the press--because it was classified. Rick is being disingenuous if he believes silence about the program before its revelation last December is evidence of complicity.

Finally, Rick writes,

Even if not required by law, why not get warrants anyway? It is hard to answer that because we don't know exactly what the NSA program, which is necessarily secret, entails. It might, for example, involve computer monitoring of large numbers of communications to which the traditional notions of probable cause are ill-suited.

This is very concerning to me, because, after a spirited (if wrong-headed) defense of what Bush is doing, Rick admits that we may not know what Bush is doing. If this is so, how can we defend it, unless we accept the doctrine that the executive is all-powerful, ineffable, and infallible? I refuse to do so. One of two things is true here; either the administration could have gotten warrants under FISA (99.99999% success rate, remember) and didn't; or, Bush is lying about the nature of the program when he tells us about the cell phones captured on the battlefield that have US numbers in them. Either way, Bush is pushing the bounds of what is acceptable.

In the end, Rick Esenberg misses a compelling part of Russ Feingold's argument that censure is necessary. Whether or not FISA is constitutional, whether or not a sympathetic Supreme Court eventually decides that Article II of the Constitution grants presidents more power than 220 years of history have seen, the president still deserves reprimand. I'll let Russ explain why:

Not only did the president break the law, he also actively misled Congress and Americans about his actions. Before the existence of this program was revealed, the president went out of his way in several speeches to assure the public that the government was getting court orders to wiretap Americans in the United States--something that he now admits was not the case. [. . .]

In this year's State of the Union address, the president implied that before he authorized the program, he couldn't have wiretapped terrorist suspects. That is simply untrue. Congress passed FISA in 1978 specifically to lay out the rules for wiretaps of terrorists and spies, and it has updated that law repeatedly since. FISA includes safeguards, which the president is ignoring, to protect the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Americans.

The president also has made a series of flawed legal and factual arguments to defend the program. He has claimed inherent executive powers that appear to have no bounds. [. . .] And he has said that past presidents have used the same authority and that federal courts have approved the exercise of that authority, when neither is true.

Rick didn't know that Feingold wrote that in his op-ed, as Rick didn't have it in front of him. But this is undeniable; while there is no great clip of Bush saying, "I did not authorize warrantless wiretaps of that woman, Ms. Lewinsky" to run over and over again on the news, there is a clear pattern of misleading the public--something he does regularly. If that does not deserve censure, I don't know what does.

Feingold *is* Mainstream

The national conservative media, national conservative bloggers, and the right half of the Cheddarsphere have been strutting around for the better part of a week crowing about how embarrassed they are by Russ Feingold, how far outside the mainstream he is, and how "fringe" he is. Here's just a sampling from the parts of the Cheddarsphere that I have seen:

• tee bee: "It's official: Russ Feingold is tone-deaf, a step behind, and thinks throwing in with the crazy far-left will get him a seat on the '08 ticket."
  
• DiGaudio: "Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Al Qaeda) couldn't be more alone if he were on a deserted island without Gilligan and The Skipper. [. . . W]e are used to him being a kook; now we are embarrassed by him. He isn't ahead of any pack. He is just on the kook fringe and playing to the peaNUT gallery (emphasis on NUT)."
  
• The Game: "The MSM loves to call Bush and other people on the Right extreme or out of touch, or 'not mainstream.' What about Russ Feingold? [. . .] Russ was the only person to vote against the Patriot Act the first time....do you think having NO ONE agree with you make you out of the mainstream?"
  
• Wigderson, in the Freeman: "Democrats in 2008 may look at the company Feingold keeps, his die-hard opposition to the Patriot Act, his obsession with the NSA surveillance program, his premature call for withdrawal from Iraq, and they may start looking in a different direction for a presidential candidate – one with some credibility on national security, instead of someone who panders to the fringe left and conspiracy theorists within the Democratic Party. Before then, we might remember the overreach and ambition of another junior senator from Wisconsin and ask Feingold, 'Have you no shame?' "
  
• Jenna: "He is alone on this issue, and he will be championed by moveon.org and Kos folks--but that doesn't mean anything for a presidential bid. Will the left love him? Yep. Will he see tons of money roll in, that campaign-finance-reforming-Senator? Yes. Will he be able to win a general election with the far left? Of course not."
  
• The vacationing Fred: "Like him or not, Russ Feingold is on the far left fringe of the left."
  
• Wendy: "Russ Feingold: Leader of the freak parade that is the Moonbat Left."
  
• P-Mac: "Do you trust the part of government trying to catch jihadists, or do you trust the one one-hundredth of the Senate that’s trying to gin up fear of the president?"
  
• McBride: "After all, Feingold's increasingly far-left stances are defining the Democratic Party in a manner that helps Republicans."
  
• Fraley: "Never intended to actually pass, the censure resolution has refocused the spotlight on Feingold, the "Maverick," and will help him with his presidential aspirations. [. . .] Feingold is not only raising money, he's building a list of the loony left."
  
• Chris, to whom I am not allowed to link: "As Senator Quisling keeps bowing at the Moonbat Altar he is handing us the War Club we need to use to defeat him in 2010. [. . .] If we show those Blue collar Reagan Democrats along the River and Up north that Russ is a member of the Hollywerid crowd and a AntiAmerica Moonbat he will lose a lot of support."
  
• And once again, my favorite, Rick Esenberg: "What this is [is] a hard left politician positioning himself to garner the support of the drum circle left."

I quote so extensively, not just because I like the copy-paste, but to try to show the magnitude of this argument from the right. Time after time after time, the right tries to marginalize anyone who raises uncomfortable questions about the conduct and activities of their golden-boy president as "far-left," "fringe," and "out of the mainstream." Well, here's a picture, so no one gets confused when I try to explain it words, later:


More Americans (though, admittedly, within the margin of error) would like the censure. And the language of the question is even neutral enough it ought to placate any of my rightly friends' concerns--it is a simple statement of fact. Now, I can see the complaints coming about the number of Democrats in the sample, but the right would still have to explain away how nearly a third of Republicans are the "far-left fringe of the far left"; are 42% of independents part of the "drum-circle left," too? Because, you know, that's a pretty big cricle. And, come on, 70% percent of Democrats favor censure--to suggest that Feingold is outside of the mainstream of his own party is just to flat-out lie; it seems more like our other Democratic elected officials (I'm looking at you, Herb Kohl) are fringier than Feingold is. (Update: A Newseek poll finds support for censure at 42%-50%, but I cannot find the wording of the question. Still, to suggest that 42% is "fringe" is absurd.)

Also consider the new SurveyUSA's monthly presidential approval survey, where Bush actually gets worse numbers than in the censure survey above. I realize this is the worst kind of apples-to-oranges thing, and Paul Brewer will be very disappointed when he sees me say this, but only eight states have approval ratings for Bush better than his no-censure number. Here in Wisconsin, Bush's approval rating is net negative 18%. Of course, disapproval is no reason to censure (and, indeed, Clinton's numbers were much better even at the height of impeachment); but it does put the lie to claims Feingold is more outside the mainstream of what people want, since the most recent SurveyUSA poll on senators landed Russ a net positive 18% here in Wisconsin--36% better than the president is doing!

It is not hard to believe that the right is pushing its "far left of the far left" idea. It is all they have, since they can't seem to accept the fact that 1) the administration is breaking the law; 2) the president is not popular; and 3) Russ Feingold is accurately reflecting the mainstream of the American public.

Memory Lane, Presidential Wrongdoing Edition

Remember this classic, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board about Clinton?

Editorial: Impeachment is premature, unfair

It's easy to see Republicans' point in seeking impeachment against the president for perjury and obstructing justice. But their actions are ill-advised on a number of fronts, from the purely political to mere ineffectiveness. Let us suggest, however, that this time, Republicans are premature. This quest for impeachment, though no doubt driven by principle, has something of a tilting-at-windmills quality that will only distract from more urgent business.

Impeachment of a president has been done only once before. It was a doubtful tool in that instance. It is even more doubtful now. That's because it is occurring before there has been a proper vetting of whether the president has committed an illegal act.

Republicans are correct that President Clinton does appear to have perjured himself and obstructed the investigation into his wrongdoing. But an impeachment vote now could be self-satisfying for purely political reasons on both sides of the aisle. Its outcome, however, is preordained and will be a wholly unnecessary distraction from the real business at hand--determining if Clinton willfully and knowingly violated laws.

Of course you don't remember it, because the paper never wrote it. Back in 1998, the paper said "Let impeachment proceedings begin":

There are compelling reasons why the country would be better served if the shortcuts of resignation and censure or reprimand are avoided. [. . .] Instead, Congress--beginning with the House--needs to begin the impeachment process and conduct it responsibly and expeditiously.

They were ready to get on with impeachment. The paper did, I will admit, demand that the hearings be "dignified," but they seemed displeased that Clinton was let off the hook: "Yet, there can be no satisfaction with the Senate outcome among Americans who honestly believe the president acted like a fool and demeaned the high office to which they twice elected him," they wrote. "To its everlasting disgrace, the Senate could not even muster the courage to at least censure the man who brought such dishonor to the nation in what will forever be known as the Monica Lewinsky Affair."

Everlasting disgrace be damned, I suppose, when it comes to Russ Feingold's measure to censure President Bush for his admitted violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Even though the paper admits today that "the Constitution does not empower the president to ignore those laws he chooses," they will not stand up for the Constitution's demands that Congress exercise its authority on the matter. Instead, they write, "Censure is premature, unfair."

However, I suspect that somewhere Russ Feingold is smiling, since towards the front of the paper, he says that "It's doing what I had hoped. As difficult as this is, everybody is now talking again about" the president's breaking of the law. To be fair, even the Journal Sentinel is talking about it; the headline by itself on the editorial today (calling censure "unfair") doesn't quite carry the full weight of the demands the editors to make about the need for real investigation and oversight:

Congress has refused to entertain a meaningful investigation into National Security Agency wiretapping and has never adequately investigated whether intelligence was manipulated to rush a nation to war.

And, still, there is some hope that enough public outrage--perhaps spurred by midterm elections--or further revelations could finally cause Congress to find backbone instead of a way to make the law fit White House actions, rather than vice versa.

Congress has displayed breathtaking unwillingness or ineptitude on the wiretapping issue. That's why it's time it launched an independent investigation.

Calling Feingold's motion for censure "unfair," though, only provides fodder for the radio talkers and right half of the Cheddarsphere. It provides cover for people like Representative F. Jim Sensenbrenner, whose House Judiciary Committee can and should be investigating the matter. It provides an out for anyone who still wants to look the other way while this White House gathers power on an unprecedented scale.

Calling it unfair also makes the editorial board look like fools, since, if that was what Russ was really after--renewed calls for a genuine investigation--he just got it. He wins this round, even if censure never happens.

I Wish . . .

. . . everybody coming here looking to disagree with me on the whole Feingold censure thing would read at least the bullet points that explain both why the domestic spying program terrorist surveillance program is illegal and why censure is reasonable.

. . . there was a reverse Google. You put in a website, and the reverse Google will tell you what search strings will return that website as the number one regular Google hit.

. . . I had a hybrid. I admit it. I have Prius envy.

. . . I didn't have to report that the "market" has failed yet again in the Milwaukee voucher program. DPI has stepped in to close Tucker's Institute of Learning. Once again, this should be the responsibility of the parents--parents who, because of the reluctance of Republicans and choice proponents to support real accountability, don't have the information or empowerment to close the school themselves.

Feingold, Censure, and the WTMJ interview

Update II: WTMJ's story, in words and video, is here. Use that link instead of Patrick's. Update: Patrick from Badger Blogger has the video here. Be kind to his bandwidth.

Update III: Don't forget, Owen and I will be on a panel togther at BlogFest 06!

Like Owen, I was invited down to the WTMJ studios to do an interview about blogs and their reactions to Russ Feingold's call for a censure of President Bush. I was expecting more of a hard-hitting, issues-oriented interview, so in the car on my way to the studio, I practiced my answers to all the questions I thought I would get (yes, the warrantless spying program broke the law; no, this was not just the naked ambition of a presidential candidate). I didn't get any of those questions.

The interview was good, though; Charles Benson, who did the thing, asked me about blogs, blogging, and bloggers in general. He did get into my own political perspective, and my thoughts on Feingold and the call for censure. Mostly, he seemed interested in what reactions I saw across the Cheddarsphere and on national blogs to the story.

Benson asked me some more background kind of questions while the cameraman shot some footage of me "blogging" and of my trusty laptop in action. (Maybe I should set up a fund to raise money towards a new MacBook Pro, eh?) In all, it was a positive experience; though Benson didn't seem to know a ton about blogging, he took me seriously and took the idea of blogging seriously, too. On the way out, we had a nice chat about what the freshmen at Marquette University High School are reading these days (ugh, The Odyssey!) and he mentioned that as election season nears, he'll be calling more on bloggers for their perspectives.

Cool.

But I wanted to make a couple of the points I rehearsed in my head before it gets too late. There is, of course, the criticism that Feingold is facing that this move to censure Bush for his lawbreaking is just the motions of a presidential candidate-to-be, that this is all ambition's ugly mug. It is most certainly not: Consider that when Senator after Senator took to the microphone in 1998 to declare that the president is never above the law, Feingold was among them. To ask that Feingold now abandon the principles he's held for eight years and two presidents--that the executive is not above the law--because some people will see it as "ambition" is disgusting. It's offensive.

There's also the criticism levied against Feingold today by the likes of Dick Cheney and Scott McClellan, that Feingold wants to stop us from spying on al Qaida. This is, of course, a complete lie; no one is asking anyone to stop spying on al Qaida, or at all. All we are asking for is that the surveillance be carried out under the law. Again, I will note, the fact that Republicans are introducing legislation to make the warrantless spying program legal after the fact shows that even they know the law was broken.

Finally, there's the argument advanced by my new sparring partner Rick Esenberg: "What this is," he writes, "is a hard left politician positioning himself to garner the support of the drum circle left." As a cymbal-wielding leader of the drum-circle left, I reject this. The right of late (well, since 2000) has made cheese with the notion that any position that challenges whatever the Republican orthodoxy of the day may be is immediately labeled the "looney left," as are any people who advance those positions. See, for example, the very very moderate Howard Dean who, because he questioned the wisdom of the war in Iraq, was marginalized by the press and Republicans as being off his rocker. They're doing it now to Russ, who is, like Dean, too moderate and too complicated to be pigeon-holed as liberal. More on this later, I'm sure.

Censure

It's a startling thought to realize that more presidents have been impeached (2) in this country than have been censured (1), given that censure is, comparatively speaking, the lesser of the two things Congress can do to show disapproval.

That's why it will be interesting over the next week to see how the Congress reacts to Russ Feingold's proposed censure of President Bush for breaking the law. Everyone knows--even Bush, who has repeatedly admitted it--that he and his administration were outside the bounds of the law when he authorized warrantless wiretaps of American citizens and others on US soil. Those actions run afoul of the plain language of the FISA statute which governs this kind of surveillance, even the langauge of the statute as amended after 9/11 as part of the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act. Period. The rationales offered after the program came to light have had a loserish "after-the-fact quality" to them, according to a former Justice official.

So, he did it. We all know he did it. Feingold, as Democrats should have done months ago, is asking for the Congress to recognize this criminal behavior for what it is. Good for Russ.

Republicans, on the other hand, are hard at work trying to cover up the illegality by making the program, post facto, legal. That would be roughly the equivalent of Democrats offering legislation in 1998 that would make it legal for presidents to lie under oath. (Had that happened, maybe Bush would have testified under oath to the 9/11 commission, eh?) In bills proposed by Senators DeWine and Specter, all would be forgiven, and the currently illegal program would be given the veneer of Congressional approval, though it runs directly counter to what Congress demanded of intelligence agencies in 1978. (Those last two links, by the way, are to Gleen Greenwald, who also has agreat perspective on Feingold's proposed censure.)

So, to sum up:
1. Bush breaks law, admits to it
2. Democrats (Feingold, at least) demand censure and accountability
3. Republicans push to make the illegal activity legal

This is America in 2006. Congressional Republicans here are showing obligation not to law or the people who elected them, but to their party. (See, for example, Bill Frist's response to Feingold, which stopped just short of accusing Russ of treason.)