Feingold: impeachment is bad for the country and an alternative to censure

[ProSense]

Let's understand what the Democrats will be voting for:

"it may not be good for the country in a time of war to try to remove the
president from office, even though he's surely done something wrong."

Senator Russ Feingold Holds a News Conference
On His Resolution To Censure President Bush

March 16, 2006
TRANSCRIPT

NEWS CONFERENCE

U.S. SENATOR RUSSELL FEINGOLD (D-WI)
WASHINGTON, D.C.

SPEAKER: U.S. SENATOR RUSSELL FEINGOLD (D-WI)


Snip...

QUESTION: Senator, this resolution, if it were passed, would
have no legal effect.

FEINGOLD: No.

QUESTION: So the only thing that would affect the NSA program,
if it's illegal, is to cut off the funding? You don't support that,
do you?

FEINGOLD: Well, there are several things that could affect the
program. First of all, one would hope, if this passes, that the
president would acknowledge what Congress has said and would bring the
program within FISA, which is what he should do.

Another approach, of course, is the legal system, is hoping that
we could get some kind of a court order and a response in the legal
system ordering the president to come within the law.

So I don't think that necessarily the idea of cutting off funding
-- even cutting off funding, how are you going to enforce that? If
the president has inherent power, he'll just shift some money around.
He'll just keep doing it. I mean, that's the problem with this
doctrine. If the president isn't going to acknowledge that a law we
passed, such as FISA, binds him, why should the cutting off of funding
affect him?

QUESTION: Senator, for those who are your critics who would
liken this or they talk about your central resolution in the same
breath that they talk about impeachment, and just say this is nothing
but one step ahead of impeachment. How do you counter that,
especially when they're using it as a weapon before the midterms to
say: The Democrats get in power, you're going to see impeachment.

FEINGOLD: Clearly, I chose to pursue censure rather than
impeachment, certainly at this point, because I believe at this point
it's a way to help us positively resolve this issue.

In other words, without getting the country in the middle of a
huge problem, like we had with the attempted Clinton impeachment, we
have a passing of a resolution of censure, and hopefully the president
would acknowledge it and say that he maybe went too far, and we would
be able to move forward and stop worrying about this and get a pledge
from the president that he's going to come within the law or make
proposals to change the law to allow it.

I think this actually is in the area of an impeachable offense.
I think it is right in the strike zone of what the founding fathers
thought about when they talked about high crimes and misdemeanors.

But the Constitution does not require us to go down that road,
and I hope that in a sense I'm a voice of moderation on this point,
where I'm saying it may not be good for the country to do this, it may
not be good for the country in a time of war to try to remove the
president from office, even though he's surely done something wrong.

But what we can't do is just ignore the wrongful conduct. So
this is a reasonable road. And

anybody who argues this is a sort of
prelude to impeachment forgets the history of the Clinton impeachment,
where censure was offered by some, especially Democrats. Senator
Feinstein offered a censure resolution of President Clinton after the
impeachment trial as an alternative because impeachment was regarded
by many as too drastic of a step.

Snip...


QUESTION: Do you see any chance whatsoever that your resolution
would be passed by this Republican Senate?

FEINGOLD: I'd be pretty surprised. But this president,
presumably, will be president for several years. And it is very
possible that others will later on control the Congress. And this is
something that could be examined at different points.

If the president changes course and indicates that he understands
that this was not lawful and that he should not have done it, then it
becomes less important.

But if he continues to assert not only this but other extreme
executive power doctrines, it will continue to be important to push
back and to ask the president to return to the law.

http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/statements/06/03/2006316.html

[ProSense]

1. Isn't it important to know what the vote is for? n/t

[Mass]

2. Apparently not.

As it was not important that senators read the bill and made sure it was the best solution before they said whether they would vote for it.

[MH1]

4. Details, details.

Anyone who has to read a bill before they sponsor it is a coward! A coward I say! Running and hiding! Cowering!

:sarcasm:

[ProSense]

3. Democrats who want to pursue impeachment

My Congressman is there:

H.RES.635
Title: Creating a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. (introduced 12/18/2005) Cosponsors (31)
Latest Major Action: 12/18/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Rules.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COSPONSORS(31), ALPHABETICAL : (Sort: by date)
Rep Abercrombie, Neil - 1/31/2006
Rep Baldwin, Tammy - 1/31/2006
Rep Capps, Lois - 12/22/2005
Rep Capuano, Michael E. - 3/9/2006
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy - 1/31/2006
Rep Farr, Sam - 2/7/2006
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. - 2/7/2006
Rep Honda, Michael M. - 2/8/2006
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila - 12/22/2005
Rep Lee, Barbara - 2/1/2006
Rep Lewis, John - 2/7/2006
Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. - 2/7/2006
Rep McCollum, Betty - 3/14/2006
Rep McDermott, Jim - 1/31/2006
Rep McKinney, Cynthia A. - 2/7/2006
Rep Moore, Gwen - 2/14/2006
Rep Nadler, Jerrold - 1/31/2006
Rep Oberstar, James L. - 2/1/2006
Rep Olver, John W. - 2/16/2006
Rep Owens, Major R. - 1/31/2006
Rep Payne, Donald M. - 12/22/2005
Rep Rangel, Charles B. - 12/22/2005
Rep Sabo, Martin Olav - 3/2/2006
Rep Sanders, Bernard - 3/9/2006
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. - 1/31/2006
Rep Stark, Fortney Pete - 1/31/2006
Rep Tierney, John F. - 2/16/2006
Rep Velazquez, Nydia M. - 2/14/2006
Rep Waters, Maxine - 12/22/2005
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. - 12/22/2005
Rep Wu, David - 3/14/2006

[blm]

19. I've been for impeachment since Conyers' hearings on Iraq and intel

and John Bonifaz made his case for impeachment .

[MH1]

5. Kick - does anyone care? n/t

[ruggerson]

7. Apparently not - kick n/t

[ruggerson]

6. So everyone who was SO SURE that Feingold

was doing this as a FIRST STEP towards impeachment is full of crap.

No wonder this thread is getting.......








..... crickets.

[MH1]

8. {{chirp}} ...............n/t

[ruggerson]

9. Kick n/t

[ProSense]

10. Emphasis on what this alternative means

hopefully the president would acknowledge it
and say that he maybe went too far, and we would be able to
move forward and stop worrying about this and get a pledge
from the president that he's going to come within the law
or make proposals to change the law to allow it.

[ruggerson]

11. Right

he's ruling out impeachment if Bush says "I'm sorry."

Well, that's not good enough.

Bush broke the law.

Lawbreakers face consequences.

Presidential consequences are called impeachment hearings.

[Imagevision]

12. Feingold in 08!!

[MH1]

13. So you think impeachment is "too radical" too, eh? n/t

[mzmolly]

14. Yes indeed.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Disturbed]

15. Shrub is the Sock Puppet for the Neo Fascists.

Does Feingold really believe that shrub and the Neo Fascists are going to stop violating any Law that they feel like violating?

"First of all, one would hope, if this passes, that the
president would acknowledge what Congress has said..."

Once can hope all one wants to but the Regime and The Sock Puppet have already stated that they violated nothing and will stay their course. The RWingers in Congress propose to change the Law and ingnore the previous violations to any Laws. This smacks of Fascism to me.

Feingold's action does bring attention to the issue yet solves nothing. We have Executive Tyranny and no moves to stop this from widening to the point of America being a Neo Fascist Police State.

[blm]

18. This is a really dumb thing he said - no senator should pre-judge the case

for impeachment.

And they certainly shouldn't use impeachment as the badforthecountry bogeyman the way Feingold is doing here.

He HAS a strong case for censure - he doesn't NEED to sell censure as the alternative to impeachment

[mzmolly]

22. I agree, I feel badly but the way he's conducted this from the beginning

has been very sloppy. You are correct, we needn't choose censure vs. impeachment - especially if we can gain a majority in the house.

[AtomicKitten]

16. A shitty president is bad for the country - impeachment the remedy

[Iowa]

17. Yep, I've changed my view on this in the last couple of days...

blm posted a transcript yesterday. As I said in that thread, I am for censure, but I don't think Feingold should be selling it to the press by saying it's the moderate approach and an alternative to impeachment.

[radio4progressives]

34. I have no problem with Feingold's charachterizing this as moderate

approach, simply because the Repukes are freaking out all over the place just over Censure - they are talking about it on Fox (see crooks and liars for video clips of Brit Hume interview of Neo Con Bill Krystol and Chris Wallace interview with Sen. Durbin)

these guys are freaked out of their minds over Feingold's resolution! As if that somehow had some sort of weight as impeachment!

What a bunch of freaking morons.

Oh, why oh why won't Democrats remind these fascists morons, that when they forced impeachment on Bill Clinton, we were a nation at war then too?

Dems never counter that fact, when they're appearing on these shows..

why is that i wonder?

[Iowa]

35. Good point! Why don't they counter with that? It'd be a slam dunk.

It's amazing that with the wheels coming off the bus they miss so many opportunities to speed the process along.

On a side note - I quit watching TV news a couple of years ago. I no longer had the stomach for it. Paula Zahn was gushing over some puke and that was the last straw for me. So I just take the word of brave souls like you who know what they're saying on the news talk shows.

[Jade Fox]

20. How much worse could things get?????

Really, that is the issue. We cannot trust Bush to do anything but fuck up. Get rid of him!!

[The Backlash Cometh]

21. Bullshit. If you let Bush get away with a slap on the wrist you'll play

into their hands. Don't you think this was a calculated risk for them? Don't you think that they already foresaw that IF they got caught, the Democrats would be too spineless to demand a punishment that would fit the crime?

These people have already gotten away with it. They have set themselves up to control this country from the shadows for decades to come, no matter who's president. Oh, poor Bush that he'll be forever regulated to his Crawford ranch and every right-wing institution that will receive him with open arms. God, that's what he wants. He didn't want to deal with us while he was president and now we're going to make sure that he doesn't have to deal with us after he leaves office.

[texpatriot2004]

23. Impeach the Son of a Bush NOW! War or no war, NOW is the time

to get rid of that terrorist and his regime who have taken over the White House.

[ProSense]

24. Maybe apology is the best course?

Ivestigate and impeach.

[zulchzulu]

25. The only real way to end the war IS to impeach BOTH Bush and Cheney

There could be no greater message to the World than to remove them from power...immediately if not sooner...then get the UN and a multi-national coalition to help clean up what we've done with a new Marshall Plan.

Slapping Chimpy on the wrist doesn't cut it for me.

[Festivito]

26. I disagree. WE NEED BOTH censure and impeachment.

Censure for its message to our broken media.
Impeachment for its message to the world.
During war, because that war is about Bush/CON foolishness and removing him may even reduce the problems we are having over there.

[ProSense]

27. Why can't calls for censure be frame to focus on the Republicans vote ?

Maybe it's time to focus on why the Republicans are not voting for censure. That is the missed opportunity.

Digby: The Dems are missing the boat on Feingold

Snip...

None of these reasons hold up for me. They do not denote timidity, so much as a kind of political blindness. Let's take them one by one...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/digby/the-dems-are-missing-the-_b_17475.html

Finally, after five days of branding all Demmocrats, including some of the party's strongest and most progressive leaders, as cowards with disinformation about the Clinton impeachment, the cry is now political blindness. There are clearly Democrats who need to wake up, but this campaign to tarnish Democratic leaders was wrong.

One: The port legislation was reported on CNN. And it was reported with as much fanfare as it ever would have been. But it is as dry as tinder. The mojo of that controversy is past. It did its job...

Yes, it and a number of other things are contributing to Bush and the Repubs downfall. That will not end anytime soon.

Two: Please tell me that the Democrats are not going to withhold criticim of Bush because it might make Republicans rally around him...

Which Democrat said that? And how will putting the Republican on record for voting against censure going to have an impact if the investigations don’t go forward.

Three: It's apparently true that Feingold didn't consult with the party...

This is responsible for the confusion, along with statements framing censure as an alternative to impeachment, which would be bad for the country during a time of war.

Four: Iraq is the issue that's killing the Republicans in the polls...

Sign the DSM letter and support the Leahy/Kennedy resolution and calls for investigations.

Five: Well yes, by all means a strategy whereby we count on Arlen Specter to hold "real" hearings is spot on. What could possibly go wrong? Why, if we wait until after the 2008 election, he might even do it.

Does this mean the Democrats will lose in 2006 and will not regain control of Congress?

Desperation is no reason to treat censure as the most damaging thing we could do to Bush. It’s good to put the Republicans on record if we vigorously pursue investigations. Unity means supporting all Democrats. And, 2006 is the issue not 2008.

[IndianaGreen]

28. We cannot impeach Bush by his lonesome, or else we get President Cheney

Bush and Cheney must both be impeached! The problem with impeaching Cheney is that we have no constitutional grounds to impeach him. The office of Vice President has no constitutional powers other than presiding over the Senate. Anything that Cheney did was under Presidential authority, so Bush will get the ax.

Now, if Cheney were implicated in breaking the law, such as the Plame leak, then he can be impeached for that after he is named as an un-indictable conspirator.

[happydreams]

29. QUIT CALLING IT A WAR!!! IT ISN'T!

Do not accept this characterization. This military operation is not a declared war.

[frogmarch]

30. Impeachment

of Bush would be bad for the country? Say WHAT?

Censure of Bush would be great IMO - but not as an alternative to impeachment.

[radio4progressives]

31. Why did you snip where Feingold says the laws that were violated are in

the Strike Zone of where our forefounders say are grounds for Impeachment ?

Feingold doesn't say, that this definetly PRECLUDES Impeachment!

But the fact is, it is TOO LATE TO IMPEACH!! and FEINGOLD KNOWS IT!

He's trying to communicate that the Democratic Party has already RULED OUT ANY ATTEMPT TO IMPEACH!!

That's why Nancy Pelosi flatly said NO to Impeachment to reporters a couple of weeks ago!

Look at the timeline people!

Impeachment proceedings should have started in 2003! It should have been the 2004 presidential Campaign platform! or at the least, begun in 2005.

It's too late! by the time the new congress gets seated, it will be just in time for 2008 presidential election campaign - so, which will effectively be about how we Democrats are far better at waging war than Republicans. There will be no attempt to impeach at that point.

At least Censuring could stop the Domestic Spying programs, it won't remove the president, but Dems don't want to do that anyway.

So we have to get a grip on that fact, on that reality.

The Democratic Party Leadership have no intentions, no thought, no plan, no strategy to move on impeachment of this president.

They want the same uber power authority as Bush has. So there's no point in rediculing Feingold for this moderate action in trying to stop a president's overreach.

[ProSense]

32. Read the entire statement, here is the link and the points emphasized

FEINGOLD: Clearly, I chose to pursue censure rather than
impeachment, certainly at this point, because I believe at this point
it's a way to help us positively resolve this issue.

In other words, without getting the country in the middle of a
huge problem, like we had with the attempted Clinton impeachment, we
have a passing of a resolution of censure, and

hopefully the president would acknowledge it and say that he maybe went too far, and we would be able to move forward and stop worrying about this and get a pledge from the president that he's going to come within the law or make proposals to change the law to allow it.

I think this actually is in the area of an impeachable offense.
I think it is right in the strike zone of what the founding fathers
thought about when they talked about high crimes and misdemeanors.

But the Constitution does not require us to go down that road,
and I hope that in a sense I'm a voice of moderation on this point,
where I'm saying it may not be good for the country to do this, it may
not be good for the country in a time of war to try to remove the
president from office, even though he's surely done something wrong.

But what we can't do is just ignore the wrongful conduct. So
this is a reasonable road. And

anybody who argues this is a sort of prelude to impeachment forgets the history of the Clinton impeachment, where censure was offered by some, especially Democrats. Senator
Feinstein offered a censure resolution of President Clinton after the impeachment trial as an alternative because impeachment was regarded by many as too drastic of a step.

Snip...


QUESTION: Do you see any chance whatsoever that your resolution
would be passed by this Republican Senate?

FEINGOLD: I'd be pretty surprised. But this president,
presumably, will be president for several years. And it is very
possible that others will later on control the Congress. And this is
something that could be examined at different points.

If the president changes course and indicates that he understands
that this was not lawful and that he should not have done it, then it
becomes less important.

But if he continues to assert not only this but other extreme
executive power doctrines, it will continue to be important to push
back and to ask the president to return to the law.


http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/statements/06/03/2006316.html

[radio4progressives]

33. Thanks, sorry i missed it the first time... Here is the Quote on point:

Feingold always states this caveat:

I think this actually is in the area of an impeachable offense.
I think it is right in the strike zone of what the founding fathers
thought about when they talked about high crimes and misdemeanors.


I believe strongly, that the party has no intention of backing Conyers to impeach, although if we win Mid-Terms - I'm sure they'll give Conyers investigation go ahead, but they won't really push for impeachment because it is really too late. unless, the base cries out for convictions louder than we have cried out for an end to this war...

i would love to be proven wrong...

[blm]

36. He clearly says he wants censure to "resolve" Bush's accountability for

his wrongdoing.

Sorry, but there is just no spinning that Feingold supports impeachment based on his clear statements here.

Why can't we be FOR censure and Feingold's submission of censure and FOR his leaving impeachment out of it - since it's not his place to pre-judge the house on this?