[NYTr] Feingold's "Censure" Plan: Another Cynical Evasion of Impeachment

[nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com]

World Socialist Web Site - Jul 24, 2007
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jul2007/cens-j24.shtml

Democrats’ “censure” plan:

another cynical diversion of fight against war and reaction

By Bill Van Auken

Senator Russell Feingold (Democrat, Wisconsin) announced on Sunday that
he will introduce resolutions in the US Senate seeking to “censure”
President Bush for his conduct of the Iraq war as well as his
violations of the US Constitution and both US and international law,
including his administration’s illegal domestic spying program and use
of torture. Vice President Dick Cheney and perhaps other administration
officials would be named in the censure bills.

In a statement Sunday, Feingold announced that he plans to present two
resolutions “condemning the President, Vice President and other
administration officials for misconduct relating to the war in Iraq and
for their repeated assaults on the rule of law.”

“Censure is about holding the administration accountable,” Feingold
said. “Congress needs to formally condemn the President and members of
the administration for misconduct before and during the Iraq war, and
for undermining the rule of law at home. Censure is not a cure for the
devastating toll this administration’s actions have taken on this
country. But when future generations look back at the terrible
misconduct of this administration, they need to see that a co-equal
branch of government stood up and held to account those who violated
the principles on which this nation was founded.”

The Wisconsin senator said that the first resolution would denounce
Bush for “overstating the case” about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
and “falsely implying a relationship with al Qaeda and links to 9/11.”
It would also indict the administration for failing to successfully
wage its illegal war by neglecting to plan for the “civil conflict and
humanitarian problems” that followed the March 2003 invasion, as well
as by “over-stretching the Army, Marine Corps and Guard with prolonged
deployments.”

The second resolution on the rule of law would cover the illegal
domestic spying program by the National Security Agency, the use of
torture, the unlawful detentions at Guantánamo and the stonewalling of
Congress on the politically motivated firing of US attorneys.

Feingold acknowledged that he was reacting to increasing popular
demands that “the President and his administration be held accountable
for their misconduct,” while admitting that “censure is a relatively
modest response.”

Indeed, a recent poll by the American Research Group (ARG) showed that
a clear majority—54 percent—is in favor of impeaching Cheney, while
indicating that the American public is split almost evenly on the
impeachment of Bush. A Newsweek poll conducted in October 2006 found
that 52 percent of respondents, again a majority, believed that
impeachment should be a high priority. (Among Democrats, the ARG poll
showed 69 percent backing Bush’s impeachment and 76 percent Cheney’s.)

The obvious question is: Given ample constitutional grounds together
with this mass popular support for bringing impeachment proceedings
against the president and vice-president, why is Feingold, supposedly
among the most liberal Democrats in the US Senate, pushing for only a
motion of censure, a measure that would have no legal implications and
would do nothing to stop the administration from continuing its
criminal actions?

In an interview on NBC television’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday,
Feingold explicitly acknowledged that “there’s a lot of sentiment in
the country...for actually impeaching the president and the vice
president,” adding that he himself thinks that “they have committed
impeachable offenses.”

The senator declared that his “modest course” was aimed at “not tying
up the Senate and the House with an impeachment trial, but simply
passing resolutions that make sure that the historical record shows the
way that they have weakened our country, weakened our country
militarily and against al Qaeda, and weakened our country’s fundamental
document, the Constitution.”

He described his proposal as “a reasonable course” that “does not get
in the way or our normal work.”

Feingold’s attempt to introduce a similar bill in the spring of 2006,
censuring Bush over the warrantless NSA spying program, garnered the
support of just three other Senate Democrats and got a cold shoulder
from the Democratic leadership.

At the time, Feingold described his fellow Democrats as “cowering”
before the administration. Despite all of the Capitol Hill theatrics
over supposed “antiwar” resolutions, little has changed in that regard.

This time around, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada lost no
time in making his opposition to censuring Bush, Cheney & Co. clear.
Appearing on the CBS morning news talk show “Face the Nation” the same
day as Feingold’s announcement, Reid said that while he understood the
“frustration” with the administration, the Senate had to remain focused
on drafting bills to fund the Pentagon and pay for “homeland security.”

“We have a lot of work to do,” said Reid. “The president already has
the mark of the American people—he’s the worst president we’ve ever
had. I don’t think we need a censure resolution in the Senate to prove
that.”

Both Feingold and Reid express great concern about not interfering with
the “work” of the Senate, or “tying up” Congress with the submission of
formal charges against the Bush administration.

What is this all-important “work” that cannot brook interference? In
essence, it has consisted of voting for funding to continue the
slaughter in Iraq—$100 billion last May—while posturing to the growing
majority of the public opposed to this war with “nonbinding
resolutions,” etc. This performance is now being repeated with the
Pentagon’s $650 billion fiscal 2008 spending bill, a sizeable portion
of which will go to pay the $12 billion monthly cost of the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan.

The so-called “antiwar” measures put forward by the Democrats—including
the one sponsored by Feingold together with Reid—all include provisions
for US troops remaining in Iraq for the foreseeable future for
purposes, defined in Feingold’s measure, as “counter-terrorism
activities, the training of Iraqi security services, and the protection
of essential US infrastructure,” presumably including
American-controlled oil fields. Reid stressed that the bill that he and
Feingold are promoting did not envision “a precipitous withdrawal” and
would “still leave tens of thousands of troops in Iraq.”

The frankest description of the Democrats’ motives and concerns was put
forward last week by Senator Jack Reed (Democrat, Rhode Island), who is
one of the key sponsors of the principal resolution calling for a
partial troop withdrawal.

“The longer we delay, the more public support erodes, and options to
avoid a more chaotic redeployment disappear,” said Reed. “The concern
that I have is that by next spring, the American public will be so out
of patience that there’s not going to be the same tolerance for a
longer-term mission that there is now.”

In other words, the goal of the Democratic leadership is not to end the
US occupation, but to save it. It is quite methodically utilizing the
rhetoric of opposition to the war along with various bits of political
theater and legislative stunts in order to contain and divert the mass
antiwar sentiment, while working to implement policies that will
reorganize the US occupation of Iraq on a sustainable basis.

Feingold’s censure proposal is part and parcel of this political
charade. He claims that his purpose is to “hold the administration
accountable.” But, according to the US Constitution, the means of
exacting such accountability for what the Wisconsin senator
acknowledges are “high crimes and misdemeanors” is initiating
impeachment proceedings against the president and others responsible
for these crimes, an action that requires a simple majority vote in the
House of Representatives, where the Democrats hold sway.

How does bringing such charges constitute some diversion from the
“work” of the Congress, a useless “tying up” of the legislative body?
After all, the American people have yet to receive any serious
accounting for how they were dragged into a criminal and murderous
war—presumably the principal indictment against Bush and Cheney. They
have been lied to and subjected to intimidation, using the alleged
threat of terrorism as a political club, over the illegal domestic
spying operation and other sweeping attacks on democratic rights and
international law. Is not a thorough investigation and presentation of
formal charges over these matters of vital importance, both for holding
Bush and his cohorts accountable, and for political and moral health of
the entire body politic?

Neither Feingold nor any leading figure in the Democratic leadership
has any interest in utilizing the power in their hands in order to
pursue real accountability. The Democrats came into office with their
leaders saying from the outset that impeachment was—in the words of
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—“off the table.” Supposed “lefts” like
Michigan Congressman John Conyers, who had talked up impeachment when
the Democrats were in the minority, immediately swung into line. Once
Conyers took the chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee, the key
panel in deciding whether grounds for impeachment exist, he parroted
Pelosi.

The truth is that the Democrats have no interest in laying out in
detail the crimes of the Bush administration, because they are
implicated in nearly every one of them, from supporting aggressive war
to backing the wholesale assault on democratic rights in the name of a
“global war on terror.”

The censure proposal is designed to skip lightly over the record of
these crimes, issuing a rhetorical condemnation of Bush in which
nothing is revealed and no one is held accountable.

This bankrupt measure received enthusiastic support from the Nation
magazine, the most representative publication of that layer of the
so-called left that specializes in promoting illusions in the
Democratic Party.

In a piece heaping praise on Feingold’s proposal, Nation editor Katrina
vanden Heuvel wrote: “While Feingold believes that Bush and Cheney have
committed what our Founding Fathers would have thought of as ‘high
crimes and misdemeanors,’ at this time he does not believe it is in the
nation’s best interest to put important issues confronting our country
on the back burner to go through months of a divisive impeachment
process. That is a view shared my many progressives.”

What is the root of this concern of “many progressives” that
congressional Democrats carrying out their constitutional mandate to
impeach a criminal president would prove too “divisive?”

Clearly, the Republican right has never exhibited any such compunction
about political divisiveness. It was willing to impeach Clinton—with
little opposition from the Democrats—over a lie related to his private
life, rather than lies that led to an illegal war that has claimed the
lives of some 1 million Iraqis and more than 3,600 American troops.

Whatever their tactical differences with the Bush White House—and such
differences have grown increasingly bitter, including within the ranks
of the Republicans themselves, the Democratic Party represents the same
social interests as the Republicans, the top 1 percent that controls
the immense bulk of society’s wealth. It likewise defends Washington’s
drive for global domination, with all of its tragic and brutal
implications for Iraq, the American people and the world as a whole.

The real concern of the Democratic leadership is that a thorough-going
examination of the crimes of the Bush administration would implicate
not only its Democratic accomplices, but every section of the political
establishment, including Congress, the media and corporate America.

The Democrats and their “left” apologists also fear that such a process
could prove explosively “divisive” in relation to the attitude of
working people, the vast majority of the population, toward the
government as a whole, potentially triggering a movement of opposition
that could not be contained within the framework of the two-party
system.