Reply #53: Here's what he had to say about calling them out: [View All]

[jane_pippin]

From his press conference this week. (entire transcript here: http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/statements/06/03/2006316.html) :

QUESTION: You talk about your Democratic colleagues sort of
cowering about this issue. (OFF-MIKE) You look at all the polls
getting consistently worse and the sort of frozen response. It's not
like Democrats are against the idea, it's like they don't really even
know how to express themselves on the issue.

Why is that? Is one of the ideas here to break through that...

FEINGOLD: Yes.

QUESTION: ... and try to get people more assertive?

FEINGOLD: When I used that word, which is a strong word, I used
it in the form of a question: Why would people cower at a time when
the president's numbers are so low? That was the context.

And it is puzzling to me, after having sat in that caucus in
October 2002 and hearing senators express enormous anxieties about
this Iraq war, to see them respond to presidential intimidation in a
way that caused, I think, a number of senators to vote for this war
who really didn't think it was a good idea.

There is a tendency in our party, unfortunately, that we have to
break through, to be afraid of taking a strong stand and stick to it.

What the American people want are people that believe in
something. And so when we got out there and are strong on trying to
have some kind of a timetable to end the Iraq war, that was a positive
for us. But then we backed off.

When we got strong on the USA Patriot Act last fall, that was a
strong moment for us. We looked like we believed in something. But
then too many of my colleagues caved.

This is the same kind of thing. There were enormous
condemnations of this NSA program, not just from Democrats, but from
Republicans. Almost everybody said, this is really pretty outrageous.
But there's this tendency, as soon as the president and the spin
machine comes out and says, "This mean you folks are soft on
terrorism," we let them intimidate us.

And I think that just shows us to be weak rather than a party
that's ready to govern the country. And we need to show that we're
strong. This is a way to do it.

Just putting it out there for your consideration.