Time for Facts, Not Resolutions (NYTimes)

[madinmaryland]

From the NY Times...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/opinion/17fri1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

We understand the frustration that led Senator Russell Feingold to introduce a measure that would censure President Bush for authorizing warrantless spying on Americans. It's galling to watch from the outside as the Republicans and most Democrats refuse time and again to hold Mr. Bush accountable for the lawlessness and incompetence of his administration. Actually sitting among that cowardly crew must be maddening.

Still, the censure proposal is a bad idea. Members of Congress don't need to take extraordinary measures like that now. They need to fulfill their sworn duty to investigate the executive branch's misdeeds and failings. Talk about censure will only distract the public from the failure of their elected representatives to earn their paychecks.

We'd be applauding Mr. Feingold if he'd proposed creating a bipartisan panel to determine whether the domestic spying operation that Mr. Bush has acknowledged violates the 1978 surveillance law, as it certainly seems to do. The Senate should also force the disclosure of any other spying Mr. Bush is conducting outside the law. (Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has strongly hinted that is happening.)

The Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees should do this, but we can't expect a real effort from Senator Pat Roberts, the Intelligence Committee chairman, or Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. They're too busy trying to give legal cover to the president's trampling on the law and the Constitution.

>>snip

In other words, Congress needs to take responsibility and investigate the administration!

[Atman]

1. There is nothing left to investigate...everybody knows what is going on

BULLSHIT, NYT.

Now IS the time. More bullshit committees and subcommittees and hearings and "investigating" the obvious just allows BushCo to run out the clock. Take him down NOW. Don't drag out America's pain. The sooner we excise the cancer, the sooner we're on the road to recovery.

[rfranklin]

2. Maybe Lee Hamilton (Bush retainer) can whitewash this one too....

Yes, bipartisan seems to means coverup these days. It's "bipartisan" as long as the Dems toe the Republican line. This cannot continue.

[Daphne08]

3. "We'd be applauding Mr. Feingold if he'd...

proposed creating a bipartisan panel..."

Yes, but this censure proposal certainly has gotten some headlines and caused people to talk which MAY lead to a bipartisan panel to investigate the spying. Maybe.

[quiet.american]

4. They're dreaming in this editorial

Exactly what Republican senators is he supposed to look to who would give more than lip service to holding Bush accountable?

It's the "moderate" Republicans who have whitewashed the matter, letting Bush off the hook for breaking the law, and giving him a blank check to continue doing so, as long as he lets them in on the details of his lawlessness.

NYT is in la-la land on this one. They need to get real.