Le Sequoit

Pure Spun Feingold

He's done it again!

Out of the blue and into the light Russ Feingold has taken it upon himself to introduce a measure in the Senate to censure Bush the Lesser for alleged lawbreaking in running the domestic spying dohickey.

Oh man, watch a bunch of Foghorn Leghorn blowhards clam up while looking to get out of the way of this one! Hillary's sneaking out the back door of the cafeteria while Barack Obama is claiming he hasn't read the resolution some two days later. Blah, blah, blah.

Republicans are summoning up with apparently limitless bile their two universal talking points―A: the Democrats are a rudderless ship, and B: to do anything but goose step to the President in this post-9-11-world-and-the-most-scariest-moment-in-the-history-of-the-world is treasonous.

note: during my brief trip to the other side to get some rightie reaction, it was truly depressing to see the fervor with which they are all cooking up the war with Iran over there.

Lefties are blogging things like, "about time someone had some guts", and "let's hope the Dem Senators come around to support this" and so on.

I, myself wondered where Russ intended to go with this, as clearly it has no legs. I thought for a moment that this was it, that this was the eve of a Feingold led Progressive Party, as the cowering of his fellow Dems would provide a convenient, (and oh, so predictable) point of departure. But this is some very wishful thinking.

It's far more brilliant (though less intriguing) a ploy than that. Feingold has properly identified a weakness in his opponents for the Democratic nomination, putting them in an impossible position of being weak on Bush on one side and following Feingold's lead on the other. It's no wonder they're hiding. At the same time, he continues to work on Republican talking point A: He continues to be the one thing that Republicans fear most, a definitive leader. He also makes points as a moderate, suggesting a censure rather than an impeachment. Though the big "I" is the kind of historical tag we all would love to see on this here hangdog, a censure just seems more ... level headed. Of course, Feingold couldn't begin an impeachment anyway, but when it comes to the American electorate there's no need to split hairs here.

What does he have to lose? He soloed against God and Country on the Patriot Act and still was comfortably reelected in my strange little Joe McCarthy, William Proxmire, Fightin' Bob LaFolette, James Sensenbrenner corner of the world.

Is he twisting in the wind ... or the twist?

posted by sequoit @ 8:53 PM