Last week's push by Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., to censure President Bush for wiretapping American citizens without court approval is an insult to America.
While censuring is essentially a strongly worded letter from Congress to the president, Mr. Feingold's resolution is a cheap political stunt which undermines the commander in chief during wartime. It is a shame that our own senator fails to understand one of the basic tenets of American life: holding the president accountable to the law is tantamount to inviting the terrorist hoards to take the lives of countless innocent Americans.
What Mr. Feingold is missing is that this is a post-Sept. 11 world. What place do the humble traditions of yesteryear ("laws") have on a planet where the twin towers could get knocked down? While it seems as if President Bush's domestic wiretapping program does not fall under the Constitution's draconian definition of “legal,” a government's primary responsibility is to defend its citizens.
Let's not be too hard on Mr. Feingold, though. These are challenging times in our nation's history and for some human beings the natural reaction is to curl up into a little ball and give our freedoms away to the terrorists. It's not that he doesn't love America as much as the rest of us, but he doesn't know how to love America.
The fact is that occasional domestic wiretapping is necessary for our country's security. If you asked Mr. Feingold about it, he would claim to agree with this stance. Don't be fooled by his politician slick-talk. He only wants wiretaps performed on American citizens if it is authorized by the FISA courts. If you're not familiar, that involves paperwork, filling out forms and basically explaining to some old man and the back of a filing cabinet why you have just cause.
Sure, President Bush could have asked Congress for any necessary changes in the FISA law and gotten them when the program was enacted. Sure, court approval can be received after the fact in an emergency.
But while Mr. Feingold suggests government employees who spend their lives finding the next batch of hijackers should be filling out paperwork about the Hussein family's botched peach cobbler, the terrorists are laughing at us. That's right, terrorist groups throughout the Middle East regularly meet to discuss technicalities in constitutional law and are encouraged by our unwillingness to support our noble leader and, more importantly, our troops. In fact, I have intelligence suggesting the following conversation may have occurred in the region north-southwest of Tikrit.
"Did you catch a draft of the resolution to censure by maverick Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold?"
"Oh, yes, my main man. I was feeling a bit down on my luck of late, but feel totally emboldened now."
"Indeed, my good man. In honor of Sen. Feingold, I will put in double hours this week on my new roadside bomb."
It's not just the irreparable harm Mr. Feingold's resolution has done to the security of our nation I am worried about. He has also dealt a death blow to the hopes of his party ever pretending it stands for something.
Come on, Russ! These cheap political games are usually reserved for the Republican Party. Why make a public stand on a potentially explosive issue when Democrats can just wait for all the smoke to clear and just say the opposite of whatever President Bush is doing? Even asking this question of whether we should censure President Bush for doing illegal things is so damaging to the party, I feel like a traitor for even mentioning it in my critically acclaimed column. (www.myspace.com/basseye gives it three out of four kudos.)
To conclude, I'm with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin on this one, who told Fox News Sunday that he had yet to hear a valid legal justification for the wiretapping program. But that is no reason to do something as extreme as sending our executive a strongly worded letter.
Bassey Etim ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in political science and journalism.
