SJC Dems Abandon Feingold Censure Hearing

UPDATE: Here's a video clip of Sen. Feingold using a post from blogger Glenn Greenwald to question John Dean about the similarities of the excuses for warrantless wiretapping used by John Mitchell of Nixon's White House and Bush's. Also the entire hearing is supposed to be re-aired on CSPAN tonight at 6:50 MST.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Sen. Feingold's censure resolution was held this morning. One of the witnesses who urged the Congress to act now to uphold the rule of law was John Dean, who served on Nixon's staff during the Watergate era. Too bad most Dem members were AWOL. According to CNN:

Nixon White House counselor John Dean asserted Friday that President Bush's domestic spying exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled his former boss from power, and Sen. Orrin Hatch snapped that Democrats were trying to "score political points" with a motion to censure Bush.

"Had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented," Dean told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold before it."

Testifying to a Senate committee on Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold's resolution to censure Bush, Dean said the president "needs to be told he cannot simply ignore a law with no consequences."

Here's a transcript of John Dean's testimony supporting Feingold. And here's Feingold's statement. Excerpt:

If Congress doesn’t have the power to define the contours of the President’s Article II powers through legislation, then I have no idea why people are scrambling to draft legislation to authorize what they think the President is doing. If the President’s legal theory, which is shared by some of our witnesses today, is correct, then FISA is a dead letter, all of the supposed protections for civil liberties contained in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act that we just passed are a cruel hoax, and any future legislation we might pass regarding surveillance or national security is a waste of time and a charade. Under this theory, we no longer have a constitutional system consisting of three co-equal branches of government, we have a monarchy.

Shameful: Almost every Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee DID NOT attend today's hearing:

Joe Biden, DE (no word on whereabouts)
Dick Durbin, IL (back home "meeting with constituents")
Dianne Feinstein, CA (claims "scheduling conflict)
Chuck Schumer, NY (office closed this morning)
Ted Kennedy, MA (his office said he was "out of town"

Herb Kohl of Wisconsin was there briefly and said nothing. The ONLY Dem on the committee who spoke on behalf of censure was Patrick Leahy of VT. The words cowardly and disloyal come to mind. More than 70% of Democrats around the nation support the censure. With voters in general, it's about 50-50. What are these Senators afraid of? It's bad enough to have to fight the Republicans on presidential lawbreaking, but to have top Dems standing in the way of the constitutional inquiry of one of their own is truly morally bankrupt, in my opinon.

I hate to say it, but these Senators are starting to look like the Democratic Wing of Republican Party. There is just no excuse for this. If Dem insiders want to ensure a low turnout of progressive and base Dems in the November mid-term elections, they should keep on mocking the passionate and courageous Dems like Murtha and Feingold and whining about their "devisiveness." I guess any Dem brave enough to speak out on the blatant and dangerous abuses of the Bush administration in any meaningful way is judged to be "devisive" in the same way that Republicans deem any Bush critics "unpatriotic."

The Beltway status quo is a stubborn and unrelenting force for inertia. Long-term, entrenched power always is. If you need more evidence on that, check out the new "Real Security" initiative " unveiled by Dems earlier this week. It's almost surreal that the plan makes not one mention of illegal NSA domestic spying, torture or distorted intelligence. Instead, it transparently equates supporting freedom and justice in the world with increased military strength. Trust us! We'll do the same thing Bush is doing, only more competently!

If we can't do better than this, expect millions of core Dem voters to stay home come November. I'm sure the poobahs at the DCCC and DSCC will be flabbergasted, but still unconvinced that their mincing blandness is to blame. To say they take the votes of the Democratic base for granted would be putting it mildly. If we don't get something better to take door-to-door to potential voters this Fall, it's gonna be a long, hard slog indeed. If we make that slog at all, that is.

Finally, here's a post that contains some of the best writing I've encountered that lays out the reasons the Democrats should be lining up en masse to sign on to Feingold's censure resolution. Wake up Democrats -- there IS no Congress if Bush is allowed to continue down this path. Either Democrats must live up to their oaths of office or they are, as the post says, as bad as the Republicans who are worshipping their new monarch.

If and when Americans wake up to the fact that their constitution and democracy have been totally trashed, I hope that many put the blame squarely on the Dem apologists who fiddled with shallow "strategists" and "pollsters" while America burned.

If you'd like to make your feelings known on how Dem committee members acted today, click away:

Patrick J. Leahy, RANKING DEMOCRATIC MEMBER, VERMONT

Edward M. Kennedy, MASSACHUSETTS 

Joseph R. Biden, Jr., DELAWARE

Herbert Kohl , WISCONSIN 

Dianne Feinstein, CALIFORNIA 

Russell D. Feingold , WISCONSIN 

Charles E. Schumer, NEW YORK

Richard J. Durbin , ILLINOIS