I would buy this editorial if I thought the American public was paying attention to Feingold’s idiotic attempt to censure George Bush for spying on suspected terrorists in the United States. But, I don’t think most people are following the story. i think at best this epeisode might fire up the conservative base a little bit, while revving up the ultra-left-wing moonbats a little more as well. Not that those leftist loons need anything to get them going.
The censure resolution is so obviously overreaching that other Senate Democrats are keeping their distance, although Sen. Barbara Boxer says she could vote for it and Minority Leader Harry Reid thinks it is worthy of serious debate. The resolution will surely strike most Americans as mindless partisanship. It also shifts the political debate back to ground favorable to the White House. The NSA program is relatively popular, indeed is one of the administration’s most popular initiatives at the moment. The White House has a good case to make on its legality, and Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee last week seemed to signal their willingness to acquiesce to a deal giving congressional blessing to the program in exchange for enhanced oversight.
Feingold hopes to blow this all up. Republicans should gladly rise to his challenge. Increasing Feingold’s prominence as a spokesman for the Democrats on the War on Terror only benefits the GOP. He epitomizes the Left’s do-nothing, or at least do-the-absolute-minimum, approach to the war. He voted against the Patriot Act, and its reauthorization. He opposes the NSA program. He was against the Iraq war, and opposes using coercive interrogation against terrorists abroad. He is against almost any measure in the War on Terror that doesn’t fit neatly within the confines of the American law-enforcement system (and against even ones that do  the Patriot Act). It was telling that on the Senate floor Feingold highlighted past statements by President Bush saying that law enforcement needs a court order to get a wiretap, by way of supposedly proving the president’s deceit. But the NSA surveillance is not a law-enforcement program; it is not being used to produce evidence of crimes, but to tip off American intelligence about potential plots and the whereabouts of terrorist agents.
Feingold has done himself a favor, but not his party. Where does Mehlman go for his hug?
