Feingold wants Bush censured for spying
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- A liberal Democratic senator who is considering a White House bid in 2008 said Sunday he is seeking to censure President Bush over his domestic eavesdropping program.
Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, a longtime critic of the Bush administration, said he hoped a censure would cause Bush to apologize for the warrantless surveillance that he put in place on his own after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"What the president did, by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and the laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping, has to be answered," Feingold said on ABC's "This Week."
The resolution Feingold planned to introduce on Monday would have the Senate condemn Bush's "unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans within the United States" and "his efforts to mislead the American people about the authorities relied upon by his administration to conduct wiretaps and about the legality of the program."
"The idea that the president can just make up the law in violation of his oath of office has to be answered," Feingold said.
Feingold was the first senator to urge a withdrawal timetable for U.S. troops in Iraq and was the only senator to vote in 2001 against the USA Patriot Act, the post-Sept. 11 law that expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers. Feingold also voted against the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq.
6 comments:
Thank goodness people are starting to stand up, better bloody late then never I guess.
Censure?
It's a start - but a weak one considering the crime.
I'm glad someone is speaking out in this manner... The more I hear about this guy, the more I like him. I'm sure Karl has some real doozies all ready to go re. Feingold, but I would definitely prefer him to Hillary... and I don't even know much about him yet.
Of course, we don't really know much about Hillary Clinton either... check out this item. I don't know how to post links in comments, so you'll have to copy and paste, but here it is:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=519
Back to Feingold: I'm going to do some research on him. I'm impressed so far!
Thanks for the link, Snave. I read the letter and it made me even more determined to support better Dems, such as Feingold.
However, if Hillary would do the right thing and stand up and say this one simple sentence, she would earn my support:
Voting for the war was the biggest mistake of my life, and now we must do whatever we can to end it.
You ever notice that whenever a Dem shows some balls, the Repubs say we're "over-reaching?"
Yeah, that's a pretty good line. They got it from us, though... I think that is one of the few words from the left that has wormed its way into the consciousness of Americans. It seems, anyway, that the word started to become popular around 1994, when NewtCo. swept into power. He and his friends defined the term, and then Dumbya revived it during his first 100 days. We lefties don't want to overreach... we just want to reach out and grab back what is being taken away from Americans.
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