The Sounds of Silence
Check out Dana Milbank’s Washington Post column this morning. Here’s a sampling from the column:
Democratic senators, filing in for their weekly caucus lunch yesterday, looked as if they’d seen a ghost.
“I haven’t read it,” demurred Barack Obama (D-IL).“I just don’t have enough information,” protested Ben Nelson (D-NE). “I really can’t right now,” John Kerry (Mass.) said as he hurried past a knot of reporters, an excuse that fell apart when Kerry was forced into an awkward wait as Capitol Police stopped an aide at the magnetometer.
Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) brushed past the press pack, shaking her head and waving her hand over her shoulder. When an errant food cart blocked her entrance to the meeting room, she tried to hide from reporters behind the 4-foot-11 Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). “Ask her after lunch,” offered Clinton’s spokesman, Philippe Reines. But Clinton, with most of her colleagues, fled the lunch out a back door as if escaping a fire.
In a sense, they were. The cause of so much evasion was S. Res. 398, the resolution proposed Monday by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) calling for the censure of President Bush for his warrantless wiretapping program. At a time when Democrats had Bush on the ropes over Iraq, the budget and port security, Feingold single-handedly turned the debate back to an issue where Bush has the advantage, and drove another wedge through his party.
So nonplused were Democrats that even Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), known for his near-daily news conferences, made history by declaring, “I’m not going to comment.” Would he have a comment later? “I dunno,” the suddenly shy senator said.
Yesterday, I chided Sen. Feingold’s political stunt of a censure resolution for being so unserious. Today, I’m amending my perspective. Anything that can make New York’s ‘Cowardly Couple’, AKA Sens. Clinton and Schumer is ok with me.
Seriously, though, I’m amazed at how little leadership skills are visible within the Democratic Party in general and with Hillary specifically. It seems to me that this is another opportunity for her to say something to make her sound like a moderate. She might be holding her fire, though, to placate the lunatic fringe base.
I strongly recommend you reading Milbank’s column, which might be a first for this blog.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing
March 15th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Dems Hide From Feingold’s Censure Resolution
[T]he censure is a losing issue for Dems.
March 15th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
“I’m amazed at how little leadership skills are visible within the Democratic Party ”
It’s not surprising to me. After all, the head of their party is Howard Dean.
Feingold’s stunt completely backfired. No sane person (even if their political views are to my extreme disliking) would consider censuring President Bush based upon the legality of a program that has apprehended, and continues to apprehend terrorists. It would show that they do not care about national security.
March 16th, 2006 at 2:16 am
A Senate Maverick Acts to Force an Issue
For months the Democrats have resisted calls from their liberal base to more aggressively challenge