cross-posted at skippy and a literal cornucopia of other community blogs.

after reading busy, busy, busy’s report that our own sen. dianne feinstein took no stand on sen. feingold’s call to censure smirky mchitlerburton, but was happy to personally introduce a resolution to censure bill clinton in 1999, we decided to ask her ourselves to explain the differences between the two occasions.

we called her santa monica office, and spoke with a lovely young woman named irene. we asked irene what the senator’s position was on sen. feingold’s resolution to censure president bush for illegally wiretapping american citizens.

[ed. note: tho the policy of this blog is to never refer to awol by name, nor call him president, we doubted that senatorial staff would understand our style sheet, so we used common language and titles to expedite understanding. although we did insist on speaking all in lower case.]

more after the jump:

irene informed us that although senator feinstein has not made any statement regarding her position on the censure resolution, the senator is named to a special inteligence subcommittee to investigate awol’s (our usage) wire-tapping further. irene assured us that sen. feinstein is against any illegal spying of any kind, and has “many questions” about this issue that she intends to ask on the subcommittee.

we then proceeded to point out that sen. feinstein herself introduced a resolution to censure bill clinton in 1999, after the impeachment proceedings. we asked irene what the senator’s position was regarding these two proceedings?

irene, clever girl that she is, told us that the senator hasn’t stated a position on this. we then told irene that, all in all, we’d give sen. feinstein a c+ for this issue: while we were happy that sen. feinstein is against illegal spying on americans and is going to be on the intelligence subcommitttee investigating this further, we were disappointed that she didn’t support sen. feingold’s resolution in light of her own resolution to censure clinton in 1999.

irene thanked us, asked us our zip code (we suppose to make sure we were constituents), and promised to forward our comments to the senator.

it was a painless, indeed, pleasant conversation, and we suggest that if any other californians (or americans in any other state) want to call sen. feinstein or their own senators in regard to sen. feingold’s resolution, please be polite. we also suggest you have a copy of the facts in front of you, so you don’t ramble. and remember that the staff of your senators, no matter how empathetic (or hostile) to your point of view, are not the enemy, and deserve your respect.

still, we urge everyone to continue to call and ask for their senators’ official stance. and don’t hesitate to make your opinions known. remember, these jerks work for us.

addendum: thanks to alegre’s” dkos diary, we find moveon.org’s” petition to censure awol.

we’ve heard it before, and we’re hearing it now:

“if the democratic party is going to be attacking the president in a time of war, then we are ready to vote and let’s see what the democratic party says,” frist told reporters right after the floor skirmish.

there are three prongs of logic that defeat the entire “he’s a wartime president, so don’t be mean to him” defense. and they each one depend on which “war” the repubbbs are talking about when they parrot this talking point.

we examine all three after the jump:

• the iraq war: awol started this one his own self, and convinced us all (“all” being the loosest definition possible, certainly not you or us) to attack iraq based on false evidence; at best he is incompetent, at worst he is a liar; in either case he doesn’t get a “king’s x from criticism” out of a war he himself initiated.
• the afghanistan war: this one is a slight corollary to the above. if awol had concentrated on actually finding bin laden, instead of diverting focus, energy, resources and lives into the iraq debacle, we’d most likely have that terrorist sitting in the cell where saddam currently resides, and there would be no war for awol to hide behind.
• the war on “terror”: this one is our favorite, because it’s so incredibly outrageous on its face, that it’s fun to simply state the facts and watch the hardly-ever-rightwing logic melt away, like so many wicked witches of the west after a bucket of water.

  setting aside the impossibility of waging a “war” on a technique (a “war on left flanks!” a “war on garroting!”), rather than an actual recognized political state or country of human enemies, the “war on terror,” if it exists, has been waged by the united states at least since the attack on the marine base in beirut during reagan’s administration.

  by the current definition of “war on terror,” every modern president since the 80’s has been a “wartime president,” including awol’s daddy, as well as (and this is important), bill clinton (witness the the first attack on the wtc and uss cole).

  yes, bill clinton, whom the repubbbs had no problem impeaching for a sexual relationship. we’ll repeat that: bill clinton, a wartime president as defined by the current standards being used now, was impeached by the repubbblican party (and the vichy democrats) for a sexual relationship.

we suggest you continue to call your senators and demand they stand with sen. feingold in his resolution to censure awol for his illegal wire-tapping of american cititzens.

addendum: we discuss the fact (found via busy, busy, busy) that sen. dianne feinstein proposed censure of clinton in 1999 but refuses to support state her position on feingold here.

double addendum: we call sen. feinstein’s office ourselves.