The Direction of Feingold’s Message

Neil the Ethical Werewolf has an interesting piece up over at Ezra’s place looking at whether Feingold screwed up by circumventing the Democratic Party leadership in presenting his censure resolution.

As a piece of personal political strategy, it was pretty darned good. I just wish Russ Feingold would just use that sort of smart tactical thinking on behalf of his party, and his country, rather than himself.

I certainly don't disagree with the sentiment behind this statement, although I believe it's predicated on an assumption that the Democrats are genuinely interested in getting behind smart tactical thinking of a bold nature—of which I've seen precious little evidence lately. I'm not convinced (though I'm open to persuasion) that, had Feingold gone through Harry Reid, he would have ended up with “a bunch of Democrats standing behind him.” I get the sense, instead, that he would have been roundly discouraged from pursuing this strategy altogether.

Depending on one’s opinion of the merits of his censure motion, that might have been a good thing, but there may be more to look at here aside from its intrinsic value dependent upon the likelihood of its success. At whom was Feingold’s message really directed? The resolution itself was clearly directed at Bush, and more generally at the GOP who facilitate his dirty deeds. But if there is, as I suspect, some truth to the idea that Feingold would have been left sans party support irrespective of his decision to work through party channels or go it alone, perhaps there was a message being sent to his own party, as well.

Sure, it’s sad that they lack the minimal level of instinct that it takes to fight and win on the fly. Similarly, it’s sad that some people are missing legs. But we don’t take away their crutches.

Maybe it’s not that Feingold was taking away the crutches from legless people, but trying to remind them that legless people don’t need crutches. Maybe he was trying to say, just because we’ve been cut off at the knees doesn’t mean we’ll never walk again.

What do you think?

(Crossposted at Ezra’s place.)