I heard of being in bed with the right but the latest piece by Newsweek columnist Eleanor Clift makes it sound like one hell of an orgy going on:

Republicans finally had something to celebrate this week when Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called for censuring George W. Bush. Democrats must have a death wish. Just when the momentum was going against the president, Feingold pops up to toss the GOP a life raft.

It’s brilliant strategy for him, a dark horse presidential candidate carving out a niche to the left of Hillary Clinton. The junior senator from New York is under attack for being too soft on Bush and the war, and most of the non-Hillarys are to her right. There is a vacuum in the heart of the party’s base that Feingold fills, but at what cost? His censure proposal looks like a stunt, “the equivalent of calling for a filibuster from Davos,” says Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. To win in ’06, he says, “Democrats need to take the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm.”

OK stop right there. A life raft? I would call it anything but a life raft. Actually a recent PEW Research poll shows that the country is pretty much split on the issue. 46% support it while 44% oppose it. What is even more shocking from that poll is the fact that only 57% of Republicans are opposed to the censure resolution.

This is definitely a far cry from being a “life raft”. I don’t know how someone can consider something as important as our 4th amendment being a life raft. That is what Feingold’s resolution is about. It is saying the President broke the law and needs censured. The Republican’s have damn near admitted Bush broke the law. If he didn’t break it then why are they looking at changing it? Funny how it works out – Tom Delay fought and had a charge dropped because it wasn’t a law when he did it. Now it’s ok to break the law as long as it gets changed afterwards?

Let’s put this another way. Many years ago I got pulled over for doing 35 in a 25. About 3 months later that street’s speed limit was raised to 35 mph. Now it was illegal when I was pulled over but the law has now changed so does that mean I get my fine back? If we play by Republican rules then I should.

This is another part of Clift’s propaganda spew that really had me wondering:

The Democrats’ dilemma is how to satisfy a restive and angry base without losing the rest of the country. “If someone proposed stringing up Bush like they did Mussolini, that would have a lot of support in the base of the party, too,” says a Democratic strategist. “But it’s not smart.” Democrats want the November election to be a plebiscite on Bush’s job performance, not a personal vendetta. “Republicans will rally round him if they think it’s a personal attack just like we did with Clinton,” warns the strategist.

First off, censuring the President is not that drastic of a measure. When you consider the shear number of lies, failures and illegalities this administration has pulled off without as much as a single inquiry then censuring should be the least of their worries. Even support for impeachment of Bush is on the march. That is a hell of a lot more severe than a motion to censure.

I would like to know who this strategist is she is quoting. Kind of odd that they don’t give out a name (maybe it’s Dick Morris). Here is what I perceive the dilemma is right now. The Democrats who are not rallying behind Feingold are not doing so because they want to appease constituents on the right. Of course that is like fishing in a dried up pond. Most of those people do a generic vote when they go to the polls (same as Democrats). Most see R by the name and punch it. The key factor here is what the independents think.

By pandering to the right, these Democrats are actually costing them votes. The Republican vote they have a chance to pick up is minimal compared to the Independent vote they may loose. Do we see Republicans swinging their votes to cater to the left in this country? The answer is no and that is why that party is in power. When you have politicians voting your partisan views then you will be more motivated to go out and vote for them. If a politician is voting against your partisan views then the chances of you going out and voting against them drops. In other words more people go to the polls to vote for someone than to vote against someone.

Again you must consider that vital Independent column when thinking about this.

Actually we could see a big change occur after this very rare St. Patrick’s day recess. Some Democrats may go home and find they have been bombarded with calls and letters asking to support Feingold. After all, this is politics.

The final thing that really makes me feel like Clift is catapulting the right’s propaganda is how she focuses on this dividing the party. Those words could not sound any more Republican even if they came out of the mouth of Ken Mehlman. It all goes back to the right’s talking point about “a lack of unity in the Democrats”.  Ironically this is all happening days after we saw a divided Republican party on the Dubai ports deal. If that were the Democrats divided, Mehlman would be on every Sunday morning talk show preaching about the lack of unity. When the Republicans don’t agree they have a different phrase for it – its representing their constituents. Hopefully after this November we will have a different phrase for Republicans – the minority party.