DFA Supports Censure?

Last night Chris Warshaw of Democracy for America was the special blogging guest over at My Vote is My Voice. Toward the end of the hour jc asked Chris,

"Does DFA have a position on Feingold's censure motion?"

And Chris replied,

"We do support Censure. We're currently assessing the best way to persuade more Senators to take our position. Let me know if you have any ideas!"

Really? DFA supports censure? You'd never know. Chris' tepid reply doesn't inspire confidence that DFA is going to be out in front on this one.

Tom Hughes posted just one diary last week over at Daily Kos: It's just horse sense. I got my hopes up when I clicked through and here's what I found: A diary about paper ballots and a new flash movie DFA put together about the importance of paper ballots.

I know these guys watch the news and read the papers. Russ Feingold introduces a Senate resolution censuring the President on March 13--and on March 15, DFA posts about paper ballots.

Bob Brigham posted the following comment:

I mean, I'm in favor of paper ballots and all, but uh, what about the whole censure thing?

I agreed with Bob. It really made DFA look like it wasn't on top of the situation. Just to make sure I wasn't totally uninformed, I went over to BFA to see what has been posted since March 13. Here's what I found:

March 13: A link to watch Feingold introduce his resolution on C-Span.
March 14: A paragraph in the Monday news roundup about the resolution.

Compare this with the number of posts FireDogLake that are devoted to or mention Feingold's resolution: at least 20 by my count. FDL is primarily run by 2 people, Jane Hamsher and Christy Hardin Smith (aka ReddHedd) but they've recruited other contributors. And they manage to cover other important topics like the Scooter Libby investigation as well.

If DFA supports censure with the caveat that they're waiting for the outcome of an investigation, they're going to have a looooong wait:

There is not going to be an investigation, we know it, they know it and George Bush knows it. The Senate Intelligence Committee voted on March 7 not to investigate. Do they somehow think Arlen Specter is suddenly going to change his stripes? The censure resolution has been referred to the Judiciary Committee, which if the GOP holds true to form will probably mean they'll wind up investigating Feingold for treason. (FireDogLake)

I want to ask DFA the same questions that Russ Feingold posed recently on the Charlie Rose show:

How can we be afraid at this point, of standing up to a president who has clearly mismanaged this Iraq war, who clearly made one of the largest blunders in American foreign policy history? How can it be that this party wants to stand back and allow this kind of thing to happen?

And then add to that the idea that the president has clearly broken the law --- and a number of Republican senators have effectively admitted that, by saying "you know, we need this program so let's make it legal," --- so they are admitting it's illegal.

The idea that Democrats don't think it's a winning thing to say that we will stand up for the rule of law and for checking abuse of power by the executive --- I just can't believe that Democrats don't think that isn't something, not only that we can win on, but it does, in fact, make the base of our party, which is so important, feel much better about the Democrats. The Republicans care deeply about making the base of their party feels energized. What about the people of our party who believe in the Democratic Party especially because they fight for the American values of standing up for our rights and civil liberties?

(Hat tip to Digby--emphases mine)

Suddenly my reply to Chris last night doesn't seem quite so cranky.

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