"I'll Support the Democrat."

I don't understand why this isn't the words of every single member of the Party with regard to the Lieberman-Lamont battle.  On Meet the Press, where Feingold hit a home run and received 4 standing ovations (at least in this apartment), he said "My position on the issues is probably closer to Mr. Lamont, but I'll say this, I'll support the winner of the Democratic primary.  If Lieberman wins the primary, I'll campaign for him.  If Lamont wins, I'll campaign for him.

Russ' most provocative moment was when he basically said that anyone who voted against his amendment to withdraw troops from Iraq was out of touch with the country. "They're not listening to the people back at home. We lost in 2000, we lost in 2002, we lost in 2004, isn't it time to do something different?" The only thing I disagree with there is that we lost in 2000. :)

This was a bold challenge to the consultants (yes, he used the word "consultants") that have been running away from the war since it began. Feingold did mention the Iraqi government's proposal to set a timetable for withdrawal, saying that "the American people get this, the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government get this, the only people that don't get this are here in Washington." This is setting up "more of the same" as attached to the ruling class in Washington and completely out of touch with the American people. Change vs. more of the same: it's 1992 all over again.

Feingold is probably the only person in the entire US Senate that can speak with authority on Somalia, and so today we heard probably the first mention of that country on Meet the Press since the Black Hawk Down incident. Russert flew right by it because he probably couldn't locate it on a map. But Feingold twice reminded him that, while we were bogged down in Iraq, the Islamic Courts Union have taken over Mogadishu, and today it was announced that a radical Islamic cleric with ties to al-Qaeda named Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys will be the new head of the parliament. He mentioned that we have exactly ONE State Department official working full-time on Somalia, and that we've spent a paltry $2 million on the country, as opposed to the billions and billions per week in Iraq. It's a very serious indictment of this failed strategy in Iraq, a display of how the global war on terror is in fact global and not local, and Feingold was well-prepared to discuss this.

Feingold was so deft in eluding the traps Russert tried to set. When Russert basically asked the same question three times in a row, putting up quotes from Cheney, from McCain, from Hillary, and saying "Don't they disagree with you," Feingold calmly stated his case. It in fact strengthened it, since he was enabled to elaborate his point each time. Not only did he mention Somalia, but Afghanistan, an intervention he supported. "You'll notice I have never called for a withdrawal from Afghanistan." Feingold clearly is isolating Iraq, and challenging the notion that it's "the central front in the war on terror."

There was also talk of Feingold's censure resolution, which the establishment press never talks about in terms of the actual illegal wiretapping, but in terms of why Feingold is doing it. Thus Pumpkinhead cited an ABC-WaPo poll that cited a majority believing Feingold was pushing censure for political reasons. Feingold reminded him that "the same poll showed a majority of people supporting that censure, regardless of the motivation. Then he very directly laid out why he believes that the President has broken the law, and how the record will be tragically blank if the Congress doesn't do something to try and check this rampant power grab from the executive branch. Russert tried to play gotcha with this GQ article, particularly the portion where Feingold says "George Bush has committed a more clearly impeachable offense than Clinton or even Nixon ever did." This is where Russ gets a little wishy-washy, saying that censure is the preferred remedy and a divisive impeachment battle may not be best for the country. I do think that impeachment has been abused and poisoned by the process in the last Presidency, and in the country the rationale would be seen as partisanship over rule of law. I don't know that this eliminates impeachment as an option, however.

UPDATE: Transcript now up.