[Mb-civic] Feingold Proposes Bush Censure Over Spying By Douglass K. Daniel

[Michael Butler]

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    Feingold Proposes Bush Censure Over Spying
    By Douglass K. Daniel
    The Associated Press

    Monday 13 March 2006

    Washington - A liberal Democrat and potential White House contender is
proposing censuring President Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping,
saying the White House misled Americans about its legality.

    "The president has broken the law and, in some way, he must be held
accountable," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told The Associated Press in an
interview.

    A censure resolution, which simply would scold the president, has been
used just once in U.S. history - against Andrew Jackson in 1834.

    Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., called the proposal "a crazy
political move" that would weaken the U.S. during wartime.

    The five-page resolution to be introduced on Monday contends that Bush
violated the law when, on his own, he set up the eavesdropping program
within the National Security Agency in the months following the attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001.

    Bush claims that his authority as commander in chief as well as a
September 2001 congressional authorization to use force in the fight against
terrorism gave him the power to authorize the surveillance.

    The White House had no immediate response on Sunday.

    The resolution says the president "repeatedly misled the public" before
the disclosure of the NSA program last December when he indicated the
administration was relying on court orders to wiretap terror suspects inside
the U.S.

    "Congress has to reassert our system of government, and the cleanest and
the most efficient way to do that is to censure the president," Feingold
said. "And, hopefully, he will acknowledge that he did something wrong."

    The Wisconsin Democrat, considered a presidential contender for 2008,
said he had not discussed censure with other senators but that, based on
criticism leveled at Bush by both Democrats and Republicans, the resolution
makes sense.

    The president's action were "in the strike zone" in terms of being an
impeachable offense, Feingold said. The senator questioned whether
impeaching Bush and removing him from office would be good for the country.

    In the House, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the
House Judiciary Committee, is pushing legislation that would call on the
Republican-controlled Congress to determine whether there are grounds for
impeachment.

    The program granted intelligence officers the power to monitor - without
court approval - the international calls and e-mails of U.S. residents, when
those officers suspect terrorism may be involved.

    Frist, appearing on ABC's "This Week," said that he hoped al-Qaida and
other enemies of the U.S. were not listening to the infighting.

    "The signal that it sends, that there is in any way a lack of support
for our commander in chief who is leading us with a bold vision in a way
that is making our homeland safer, is wrong," Frist said.

    Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said on CNN's "Late Edition" that Feingold's
announcement on a Sunday talk show was "political grandstanding. And it
tends to weaken our president."

    A longtime critic of the administration, 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. He
also voted against the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to use force in
Iraq.

    Jackson was censured by the Senate in 1834 after he removed the nation's
money from a private bank in defiance of the Whig Party, which controlled
the Senate.

    On Feb. 12, 1999, the Senate failed to gain enough votes to bring a
censure resolution against President Clinton. The Senate had just acquitted
Clinton after the House impeached him in December 1998, accusing him of
committing perjury and obstructing justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

    Impeachment is the only punishment outlined in the Constitution for a
president. But the Constitution says the House and Senate can punish their
own members through censure.