"The Feingold resolution, and the talk about it, is an indication of how frustrated Democrats are," said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
For years, Democrats have sought wide-ranging congressional investigations into a number of volatile issues - the Bush administration's claim about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, foul-ups in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and more - but they faced a GOP-led Congress reluctant to conduct probes.
In the case of Katrina, Democrats refused to join House Republicans on a special committee looking into what went wrong. The GOP went ahead anyway, and last month delivered a report excoriating the administration for failing to act efficiently.
Feingold's five-page resolution, which he formally introduced Monday, would have the Senate censure Bush and "condemn his unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining the court orders required."
The last time Congress discussed a censure resolution seriously was seven years ago, when Democrats, led by Lieberman, considered censuring President Clinton for his conduct in the Monica Lewinsky affair. Clinton was impeached in the House and acquitted in the Senate; the censure probe went nowhere.
Only one president has been censured: In 1834, the Senate acted against Andrew Jackson for his involvement in a banking controversy.
Sensing the Democrats' ambivalence, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., tried to get the Senate to vote on censure Monday and Tuesday, but he was blocked by Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., who said he needed to consult Democratic leaders.
"This is a political stunt," Frist said of the censure proposal, "a political stunt that is addressed at attacking the president of the United States of America when we're at war, when the president is leading us with a program that is lawful."
But Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., seemed to take the plan more seriously. He went to the Senate floor Monday to explain in detail why he thought Bush's surveillance was justified - but he also said he wanted to probe the matter further.
Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Pa., joined Specter, and the two discussed the issue before the national C-SPAN2 audience and Senate colleagues.
Durbin asked Specter if he agreed with Frist that the wiretap program was "both constitutional and legal."
"I neither agree nor disagree," said Specter. "I don't know the answers to those questions."
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant
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