Reply #31: And places like Nebraska will remain waaaaay out of touch

[Telly Savalas]

so long as everybody placates the extremists who live there.(*) If their ideas go unchallenged, then how will they change?

Furthermore, the "we can't do X, because it leaves Red State Democrats hanging out to dry" argument just handcuffs us. It could be applied to pretty much any position to the left of those espoused by Chuck Hagel.

The Bush administration is way out of line on numerous fronts, and they need to be called out for it. With respect to the wire-tapping, it's totally tenable for a conservative of either party to support censure. It has nothing to do with terrorism or civil liberties, but rather it's all about the rule of law. There was a legal process whereby Bush could have obtained authorization for the wire-taps, but he willfully chose to flaunt that process. If he thought FISA was inadequate he could have asked his Republican House and Senate to amend the law for him. But he didn't. He just ignored the law.

Unless one believes that the president can do whatever he wants with impunity, then a censure is certainly a reasonable response.

I'm not asking that Ben Nelson be vitriolic about it or put a bunch of nasty photoshopped images of the president on his Senate website. "Nobody is above the law" isn't exactly a hippy-socialist credo, y'know.

(*) With this statement, I'm not trying to imply that everybody in Nebraska is a member of the John Birch Society. I'm originally from Kansas, so I know quite well that even the reddest of states have many wonderful Democrats and progressives fighting the good fight.