Why the Beltway Class Can't Comprehend the Russ Feingolds of the World

[pstans]

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/11/why-beltway-class-cant-comprehend-russ.html">Glenn Greenwald, whose blog became popular during the Domestic Wiretapping scandal, has a great piece on Sen. Feingold today. The posts dicusses why the Washington insiders don't understand Feingold. It is rather long, but well worth the read. Here are parts of the post...

Russ Feingold has spent his entire idiosyncratic political career espousing views because he believes them, even when those views are so plainly contrary to his political interests. He infuriated his entire party by being the only Democratic Senator to vote against dismissal of the Clinton impeachment charges prior to the Senate trial. He pursued campaign finance reform hated by incumbents in both parties...

Despite all of that, when Feingold stood up and advocated censure -- based on the truly radical and crazy, far leftist premise that when the President is caught red-handed breaking the law, the Congress should actually do something about that -- the soul-less, oh-so-sophisticated Beltway geniuses could not even contemplate the possibility that he was doing that because he believed what he was saying. Beltway pundits and the leaders of the Beltway political and consulting classes all, in unison, immediately began casting aspersions on Feingold's motives and laughed away -- really never considered -- the idea that he was motivated by actual belief, let alone the merits of his proposal.

That's because they believe in nothing. They have no passion about anything. And they thus assume that everyone else suffers from the same emptiness of character and ossified cynicism that plagues them. And all of their punditry and analysis and political strategizing flows from this corrupt root...

The Beltway pundit class and the premises which generate conventional Washington wisdom are corrupt to their core and always wrong. And this Feingold announcement illustrates a major reason why that it so. They operate from a set of completely unexamined, empty premises that reflect their own character and belief system, but nobody else's. They have no core convictions and no passion and think that those attributes are the marks of sober, responsible people. And they project those character flaws onto everyone else and assume that nobody other than unserious lunatics are motivated by real belief.

Feingold stands up for what he believes and he isn't afraid to fight for those beliefs, even when they aren't popular amongst those in Washington. Many times, those pundits and insiders call this career suicide, but those in America think this is courage. Russ Feingold has courage and that is what would have made him a great presidential candidate.

Russ is standing up for US!
"It's time to stand up - not to cheer, but to fight back." - Russ Feingold

http://iowafeingold.blogspot.com

[nam78_two]

1. Feingold will make a fine Dem. president someday-K&R/nt

[pstans]

2. Maybe in 2012 or 2016

or as VP