“Apology sought for Feingold remark—Washington – Activist groups, bloggers and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean on Wednesday castigated Sen. Wayne Allard for saying that another senator sides with terrorists.
In an interview first broadcast Monday, Allard told Denver radio station KOA-AM reporter Roger Hudson that Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., “has time and time again taken on the side of the terrorists that we’re dealing with in this conflict.”
Allard, R-Colo., made the comment when asked his thoughts on Feingold’s introducing a resolution in Congress to censure President Bush because of the domestic wiretapping program by the National Security Agency.
“It is completely out of bounds to suggest that anyone demanding accountability is siding with terrorists,” Dean wrote to people on the Democratic Party e-mail list.
And ProgressNowAction.org, a Colorado liberal website, called on Allard to apologize, calling his remark “despicable.” Allard declined to answer other questions about the matter, saying he was late for a hearing and would talk later. He could not be reached later in the day, but his office re-released a statement it had given Tuesday to a liberal radio program. Allard did not address the statement he made about Feingold siding with terrorists.
“Senator Allard’s comments were unfortunate,” Feingold said in a statement Wednesday. “Supporters of the illegal domestic- spying program know they don’t have a legal leg to stand on, so they are reduced to questioning the patriotism of those who point out the simple truth that the president is breaking the law.”-from today’s story in the Denver Post(CO).
Responding to Feingold’s critics on another flank, Digby takes up some Democrats’ objections to Feingold’s censure motion, one by one.
Update [2006-3-16 15:48:29 by howieinseattle]: Pithy Quote: “The only prominent politicians I have any respect left for now are the four horsemen of the Democratic Party — Al Gore, Russ Feingold, Howard Dean and Jack Murtha. They must rebuild this party from the ground up.”-Cenk Uygur on The Huffington Post.
With deep respect to Kevin Drum (having read and admired hgim from way back) I think this
There is still a lot of angst, it appears, both in Washington and the blogosphere over Feingold’s censure motion. It seems that substantively, the party agrees that Bush broke the law and deserves to be censured, but there is a division among most of the blogosphere and virtually the entire establishment about whether this is a canny move politically.
is pure crap.
We should all be shouting from the galleries and the pulpits and wherever we are that these guys are corrupt, unethical, and would -be aristocratic assholes.
I think perhaps that I’m a simpleton and I’m certainly not cut out for political office but if a good woman or man sees something out of place and wrong she/he should pipe up. Sometimes the truth isn’t popular but there were days, however brief they were, that some politicians would often do the unpopular things anyway withotu regard to reelection.
The fact is that often integrity is not politically expedient but that one has to follow it to retain integrity. When telling the truth becomes simpy ‘politically expedient’ we all have reason to be afraid
I think the problem is that most Democratic politicians are corrupt and unethical too. There are very few true liberals or conservatives in Washington. Most of our elected representatives in both parties are self-interested corporatists. People like Feingold and Boxer are rare exceptions. The whole system is corrupted beyond recognition.
Screw canny political moves. It is a sad day indeed when a politician — a profession that is often universally tarred with a brush that sounds a lot like, “How can you tell when a politician is lying? When his lips are moving” — gets raked over the coals for standing up and telling the simple, plain, unvarnished truth.
Russ made a fine 25-minute speech on Monday, but it really boils down to five words: The emperor has no clothes. And the people who claim they can see the clothes are ridiculing those who are saying that his tighty-whities are in plain sight.
I gotta agree. It’s like the people who are lying and saying that they can see clothes are ganging up and pounding on those that tell the truth. “How dare you say he doesn’t have any cloths , how dishonest!”
It’s maddening. Black is white and up is down.
And, you have to distrust people that immediately dog people with opinions. He just had to get up and speak his mind without party permission for people to try to come down on him. Now, I know that discipline is important and Republicans have it in spades.. but it’s galling when discipline is enforced upon people doing what the party needs…
The terrorists have not struck US soil since 9/11 but they have done more damage than they could have imagined.
The terrorists have clearly won.
The president sits with a 37% approval rating and gets a walk on illegal and unconstitutional acts. Can’t attack a president in a time of war Frist says.
Lieberman says it more important to figure out how to do it legally and to chastise the president. There already is an legal way to do it.
And the president has spun up so much fear and Arab hate mongering that when he proposed sell port rights to UAE, the Senate, House and 90% of American went ballistic. even though it is probably a good idea. W’s greatest mistake in that was, as usual, his arrogance in thinking he could just push this through.
Censure is a very appropriate step. It doesn’t create the distractions of an impeachment, is more politically acceptable, and sends the appropriate message that we are not unhappy with the intent, just the method. And we are really unhappy with the method.
Of course censure also seems a bit ironic since W doesn’t seem to want to consult anyone on anything anyway.