Censure and MoveOn?

The South Carolina Republican Party took a page from the largest progressive organization in America. Never thought I'd write that.

After nearly four hours of deliberation and multiple rounds of balloting, the South Carolina Republican Party voted Monday night to censure Mark Sanford for traveling overseas to visit his mistress -- but stopped short of calling on the governor to resign.

Members of the South Carolina GOP's executive committee approved a resolution censuring Sanford for conduct that demonstrated "repeated failures to act in accordance" with the party's core principles and beliefs, according to GOP sources on the teleconference.

The resolution also reprimands the governor for "falling below the standards expected of Republican elected officials."

Sanford issued a short response to the censure through his spokesman late Monday.

"The governor fully appreciates the party's position, and he intends to work diligently to earn back its trust," said spokesman Joel Sawyer.

The censure is a first for any sitting Governor in South Carolina, but it looks like the state GOP will let it lay there.

Just like they did for Bill Clinton.

Right?

(Incidentally, Clinton didn't leave America without telling anyone to go huddle with Monica Lewinsky for a week. That would be the difference.)

DiFi Watch: MoveOn Calls For Censure

Adding to the dozens of organizations trying to hold Sen. Feinstein accountable is MoveOn, who sent their 500,000-member list in California this today:

Dear fellow Californian,

Last week, every member of the Senate had a chance to take a stand against torture. Most Democrats did-they opposed the nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General because he left the door open to torture. He wouldn't, for example, say whether water-boarding-an interrogation technique that simulates drowning-constituted torture.

But Senator Feinstein wasn't with the majority of Democrats-she actually cast a pivotal vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee to confirm him.

And that's not all. In recent months, Senator Feinstein backed the president on issues ranging from right-wing judges to immunity for phone companies that broke the law.

Now, California Democrats-led by our friends at the Courage Campaign-are seriously organizing to get her attention. They've launched a grassroots campaign to ask the California Democratic Party to officially censure Senator Feinstein when its executive board meets this weekend.

The medium is really the message here. The actual censure resolution is not going to pass. Establishment CDP types will squash it at the Resolutions Committee and ignore the grassroots call for change in the process.

"It is going to be thrown out and rejected," said Bob Mulholland, a veteran party strategist in Sacramento. "Sometimes people can't anticipate or can't understand the big picture."

State Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres did not return messages seeking comment. But his spokesman Roger Salazar told the Sacramento Bee, "this party supports our Democratic senator and will continue to do so...Period."

Bob Mulholland, by the way, is unbelievably out of touch.

I'm told that PDA is set to go forward with signature gathering to bring the censure resolution to the floor if it's blocked in committee, but apparently, because it's a late resolution, that would be out of order. The CDP bigwigs are likely to succeed in protecting their own little fiefdom here.

However, the real benefit is in the attention this garnered. Not just in the blogosphere, where stalwarts like Glenn Greenwald ripped apart the CDP's incumbency-protection-at-all-costs statement...

The Chairman has so decreed. And one can only marvel at the patronizing explanation that those who are angry about Feinstein's Bush-revering simply "can't understand the big picture."

So, in other words, they'll blindly support Feinstein no matter what she does. And she'll continue to support the Bush administration no matter what. That means, by virtue of the transitive property, that the Democratic Party apparatus will continue to support the Bush administration no matter what -- which is, of course, what explains what has been happening the last several years, and particularly this year.

...but throughout the progressive movement. Not all of MoveOn's membership aggressively follows the news. They share the organization's values and rely on it for information about what's happening. The liberal base of the party just got dropped on what Dianne Feinstein's been up to, and this will only snowball the calls for action.

The CDP has changed a little for the better overall, but at the upper echelons, they're still a relic, a by-product of insider hacks and wannabe politicians who worship at the altar of power and are stuck in a DLC-type mindset. The Legislature is too swamped by money and too concerned with self-aggrandizement. The reforms needed are obvious but there's a brick wall or hackdom you have to cut through to get to them. This mini-revolt against Feinstein is not an isolated incident, it's a symptom of something much bigger that's wrong with the Party. With a trashed Republican brand, we can do so much better than where we are right now.

Feinstein Faces Censure At CDP E-Board

Progressives are angry with Dianne Feinstein to a degree that I've never seen before. She followed up the Leslie Southwick nomination with the Michael Mukasey nomination, and this week she may tip the balance on telecom immunity in the Senate Judiciary Committee. This weekend, at the California Democratic Party executive board meeting, she may get a reprimand.

One day after voting to elevate a divisive conservative judge to the federal appeals court in New Orleans, President Bush invited California Sen. Dianne Feinstein aboard Air Force One to survey the damage from the recent spate of Southern California wildfires.

The senator later remarked privately that she found her conversation with Bush aboard Air Force One "illuminating," a source close to Feinstein told the Huffington Post [...]

Now, a coalition of progressive Democrats upset with Feinstein's controversial votes will ask the California Democratic Party to censure her at its executive board meeting this weekend, the Huffington Post has learned.

The move comes as Feinstein again finds herself under fire for saying Thursday that she now supports granting legal immunity to telecom companies that shared customer email and phone messages with the federal government as part of the warrantless surveillance program.

"Dianne Feinstein does not listen to the people of California," said Rick Jacobs, president of the Courage Campaign, a progressive organization in California. "She supports George Bush's agenda time after time."

Knowing what I know about the e-board, this is not likely to pass. And if it did, it's not likely to mean anything or change any opinion. But it's a symbol of exactly how upset the grassroots is with Feinstein, and how they are grasping for something to express their disapproval.

More Censure

Russ Feingold is again looking to censure the President, unwilling to press for impeachment and reasoning that this is the best that can be done at this time.

Over the recent months and years, we've learned that this President, and his administration, have used mistruths, spin, lofty-rhetoric, hyped-up intelligence reports, and scare tactics to drag this country into a war that can only be described as the worst foreign policy mistake in our nation's history.

In addition, the administration, in an attempt to justify this mistake, has repeatedly distorted the situation on the ground in Iraq.

And the President continues to keep our country bogged down in Iraq – in a civil war that has no military solution and actually hurts America's ability to fight those who attacked us on September 11th, 2001.

What's equally dangerous is the blatant disregard President Bush has had for the rule of law on which our country was founded.

Future generations must understand that at a time in our nation's history when the very foundation of our government was threatened, Congress was not silent.

Regardless of whether you are for or against the impeachment of the President, Vice President, and other administration officials, Senator Feingold's censure resolution is a powerful way to hold this administration accountable.

Feingold's in kind of a tough spot, since as a Senator he can't introduce impeachment resolutions. And I believe he feels boxed in by the similar Democratic groupthink that impeachment would be a distraction for the country. Indeed, Harry Reid doesn't even want to waste a moment even on censure.

REID: I’m sure Russ Feingold will try to find a way to offer that amendment. The Republicans won’t let us vote on it. They’ll block it.

SCHIEFFER: So would you go along with it if they let you vote on it?

REID: Bob, frankly, we have so many other things to do. The president already has the mark of the American people that he’s the worst president we’ve ever had, and I don’t think we need a censure resolution in the Senate to prove that. We have to do…

SCHIEFFER: So you’re not going along with it?

REID: Well, at this stage, Russ is going to have to make his case as to why we should do that rather than do our appropriation bills, finish the defense authorization bill, Homeland Security appropriation bill.

SCHIEFFER: OK.

REID: We have a lot of work to do.

It's obvious that this President had committed untold crimes that warrant impeachment. Censure is actually an intermediate step to get the Senate on the record as saying that these crimes merit serious condemnation. And when it fails to reach even 30 votes, it'll be even more clear that there is not enough time to make removal a reality. There's just not enough time, and the Republican caucus is not nearly independent enough to make this successful. I support it because clueless Beltway consultants don't, and my belief is to be completely counter-intuitive to them. But that doesn't mean it'll be successful.