censure

For anyone reading this who hasn't heard, Congress has been dealing with a motion by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) to censure the president for breaking the law in conducting wiretapping against American citizens without a court order. Yet, despite the fact that the president's wiretapping (like the president himself) is unpopular, and despite the fact that Democrats have been complaining about the constitutionality of said wiretaps, Democratic senators have reacted tepidly to Feingold's motion. 2 have even said they plan to oppose it. There's some good analysis and discussion of the situation going on at Firedoglake and Glenn Greenwald (speaking of, I'm updating my blogroll, adding a couple of the better sites I've found lately).

The sad thing about all this, to me, is that the Democrats were getting a lot better at actually fighting the Republicans until very recently. Starting with the surprisingly pathetic roll-over for Samuel Alito, however, they've been acting like it's 2001 again and W's approvals are back in the 80's (as many of you know, in fact the opposite is true-- W's ratings are the worst ever, and less than 10 points away from Nixon's when he resigned).

If the Democrats ever want to run Congress again, they're going to have to internalize one single immutable fact about the American electorate: they only vote for people with the integrity to fight for their beliefs. In a way, it's almost like it's the only thing they look for in their candidates. Republicans have not done well because of what they stand for; in fact, surveys show that, on the issues, the American people's beliefs line up well to the left of the Republicans, and even some Democrats (with the exception of gay marriage). Rather, Americans vote for Republicans simply because they appear to stand for something. Democrats got the boot in '94 not because their message was wrong, but because they looked corrupt and spineless.

So, to the DC Democrats: FIGHT. No more running. No more pussyfooting around, no more sidestepping or backing down or handwringing. For the love of God, stop these jackasses before they do any more damage.

FIGHT.