Russ Feingold
US politician, Senator from Wisconsin.
How many times are we going let George Bush and Dick Cheney say, ’You guys don’t support the troops. You’re not patriotic,’ and let them push us around? We have to stand up to them.
This conduct is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Americans want to defeat terrorism and they want the basic character of this country to survive and prosper. They want both security and liberty, and unless we give them both — and we can if we try — we have failed.
The Democrats were in the majority in the U.S. Senate when we voted for the Iraq war and passed the U.S. Patriot Act. It's not enough to be in the majority, you have to stand for something.
Senator Feingold was right about the dangers when the Senate first passed the Patriot Act, and he has remained true to his cause. I stand with him today as I should have the first time.
I strongly disagree with the President's characterization today of NAFTA as a "success", and with his call on Congress to pass CAFTA this year. These comments are out of touch with American businesses and workers who have been forced to compete on an uneven playing field for years under bad deals like NAFTA.
Russ Feingold is one of our best - he is very smart, very hardworking and very independent. If he irritates some of his colleagues from time to time, I think sometimes all of us do.
We, as a Congress, have to stand up to a president who acts like the Bill of Rights and the Constitution were repealed on September 11.
This trade agreement fails on every count. I urge my colleagues to scrap it and tell the administration to come back with a deal that is fair to American businesses, workers and farmers, as well as the small businesses, workers and farmers of our trading partners.
I will also continue to strongly oppose any reauthorization of the Patriot Act that does not protect the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Americans with no connection to terrorism.
It's that mix of passion and pragmatism that Feingold hopes will appeal to Democratic voters looking for a fresh-faced truth-teller come 2008. Feingold's career has been defined by his crusader nature, but it's his skills as a conciliator -- with conviction -- that may be most important for his hopes of capturing his party's nomination.
Some say 'we've got it made ... let's not rock the boat,' but I believe that's exactly how we lost in 2002 and 2004. We won't win by default. We won't win by just running out the clock. We'll only win if we show we are willing to discuss tough subjects or else we will be perceived as weak and full of fear.
The Wisconsin senator gets up and says out loud what half of the country is thinking and talks about every day. This President broke the law and lied about it; he trashed the Constitution and hides himself in the flag.
Of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists. But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. And that would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.
The New Republic recently dubbed Feingold 'The Hillary Slayer'; Vogue called him 'The Man of the Moment'; and he is a favorite on liberal blogs like Daily Kos.
The nation needs more leaders similar to Feingold - a Democrat in the Wisconsin Progressive Party tradition - who don't just talk the talk, they walk the walk.
Americans ought be listening to Russ Feingold in these defining days for the Republic, because what the Democratic senator from Wisconsin is saying goes to the heart of the question of whether a nation founded in revolt against monarchy will be ruled by laws or by the crude whims of an intemperate sovereign and his out-of-control administration.
I rise to oppose the Central American Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA, the latest expression of the disastrous trade policies of this administration which are, unfortunately, a continuation of the disastrous trade policies of previous administrations.