That threatened to overshadow other efforts to ensure Bush's visit would be a success, including Vietnam's removal from the U.S. list of countries that violate religious freedom.

Supporters of the Vietnam trade bill failed to get the two-thirds vote needed to approve it on the House "suspension calendar," usually reserved for noncontroversial legislation.

But since lawmakers voted 228-161 in favor of the bill, Republicans leaders were expected to try to win approval later this week through a procedure that requires only a simple majority to pass.

"The vote showed there is strong support in the House for this bill and it will pass eventually," said Adam Sitkoff, the executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce chapter in Hanoi.

It is still possible that both the House and the Senate could approve the bill before Bush is in Hanoi.

The chances of a Senate vote on the trade bill improved after Hanoi announced it was deporting a U.S. citizen convicted of plotting violence against the Vietnamese government.

Sen. Mel Martinez, a Florida Republican, had been blocking Senate action on the to win the release of Thuong Nguyen Foshee, who lives in his state and was in a Vietnamese prison for 14 months before she was convicted last week.

DEMOCRATS DIVIDED

The House vote showed many Democrats remain strongly opposed to trade agreements. Republicans supported the Vietnam bill by a two-to-one margin, but Democrats were almost evenly divided for and against the measure.

That raises questions about whether Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record), a New York Democrat expected to become chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee in January, can follow-through on promises to work with the White House on trade.

Rangel had predicted the Vietnam trade bill would pass and urged other Democrats to support it.

"We're just dumbfounded and confounded by this vote," said Nicole Venable, a trade lobbyist with the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "What does this mean? Does it mean the (Democratic) caucus really isn't where (Rangel) is? Does it mean that he really doesn't have any sway?"

A late push by the AFL-CIO labor federation might have been a factor in persuading many Democrats to vote against the bill, Venable said.

Congress needs to approve permanent normal trade relations with Vietnam for U.S. farmers, bankers and other business to share in the market-opening benefits of Hanoi's entry into the
World Trade Organization next month.

The United States normalized trade relations with Vietnam in 1995 and signed a bilateral trade deal in 2001 that opened Vietnam's market to more U.S. exports. Two-way goods trade between the countries totaled about $7.8 billion last year, including $6.6 billion in imports from Vietnam.

However, U.S. trade relations with Hanoi have remained subject to a Cold War provision known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which links favorable tariff treatment for products from several countries such as Vietnam and Russia to the rights of religious minorities to emigrate freely.

Vietnam's WTO deal requires Hanoi to reduce tariffs on almost all U.S. manufactured goods and on nearly 75 percent of U.S. farm exports. Hanoi also pledged to open sectors like telecommunication, financial services and energy to more U.S. and foreign firms.

He did not say exactly when the committee - a legally required precursor of a White House bid - would be formally established. But he noted that it was "part of the process". Whatever happens, he added, "the important thing is that we will be prepared".

With his reputation as a maverick and blunt-spoken teller of truth to power, Mr McCain has a proven appeal to independents and many Democrats. He has also of late moved to shore up support among the Christian right, a constituency vital to success in the primaries - as he learnt to his cost six years ago.

Every sign thus far is that he plans to run. There are, however, significant question marks about a McCain candidacy. One is his advocacy of yet more troops being sent to Iraq, at a moment when the war has never been less popular. The other is his age. If elected, Mr McCain, who is a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, would be 72 when sworn in in January 2009, making him the oldest incoming president ever. He also has a history of melanoma skin cancer, meaning that his health would be a matter of intense scrutiny.

On the Republican side, after the defeat and political self-destruction of the once-fancied Senator George Allen of Virginia at last week's midterm election, the Arizona senator's most dangerous rival may be Mitt Romney, the outgoing governor of Massachusetts, who is showing every sign of a presidential bid.

Other possibilities include the former mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani, and the outgoing Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee - and conceivably even Mr Giuliani's successor as mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

The Democratic contest also became slightly clearer yesterday. Joe Biden, senator for Delaware, confirmed on ABC's This Week programme that he planned to run in 2008, but did not say when he would take a final decision. In the meantime, Mr Biden is expected to become chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee when the new Democrat-controlled Senate convenes in January. He advocates a loose federal structure for Iraq. But another senator, the liberal Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, who has been a strong opponent of the Iraq war from the beginning, ruled himself out of the race - as did Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat poised to take over as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I value my marriage too much for that," he joked.

The favourite - albeit undeclared - remains Hillary Clinton, flush with money after her untaxing re-election to the Senate from New York last week, and with a powerful organisation already in place.

But a threat has emerged in the person of Barack Obama, the wildly popular first-term senator from Illinois, who has been promoting a political memoir, The Audacity of Hope, that in part resembles a campaign manifesto. Mr Obama, born of a Kenyan father and Kansan mother, recently admitted that he was mulling a bid. A decision could come soon, he indicated. Other senators who might join the 2008 contest are the defeated 2004 nominee John Kerry, and Evan Bayh, the conservative Democrat from Indiana. All but certain to run is John Edwards, Mr Kerry's running mate four years ago.

The truth will see the light of day.

Once the dirty truth comes out-- that Bush was a criminal and constitutional violator in SO many ways, the 31% rating for Bush that we see today will look huge. The American public will demand that something be done. They will insist upon the rescue of the constitution.

I believe that there will be more network anchors who, emboldened by the tough talk of first and foremost, Keith Olbermann, but also Jack Cafferty and Lou Dobbs. These gutsy media spokesman will rally the American people to demand that the perpetrators face justice, that the abuses to the constitution and the bill of rights be righted (or, with the current climate, "lefted.")

The Republican party will be faced with a disastrous 2008 election and they will have little choice but to cut the damage-- the slowly, but strongly growing media storm of outrage over the crimes and abuses of Bush, Cheney and their worst appointees, particularly Gonzalez.

The Republicans will be forced to take a walk to the white House-- at least 15 or 16 of them-- and they will tell Bush and Cheney, that they have to resign, because the Republican party will be obliterated if they don't clean up their own mess. And Bush and Cheney are their mess.

It will be oh so delicious to see the day that Bush and Cheney resign because the Republicans told them to. Either that, or the Dems will take an additional 50 house seats and 15-20 MORE senate seats in 2008. At that point, the two party system could be replaced by new parties.

It is a certainty, the Republicans will not allow that to happen. The senators will go to Bush and Cheney and tell them they have to resign-- and fast.

This won't happen overnight, but it won't take too long. There are already a few Republicans who have expressed reservations. Expect the ones who will be facing elections in 2008 to be under more pressure to get on board, and the few remaining moderates remaining on the Republican side of the aisle.

Don't expect every Democrat to get on board. Joe, the red, Lieberman might hold out just to annoy the Dems, or to hold out for a deal of his own. Seriously though, that is VERY unlikely, with his constituent base.

Eventually though, Bush will get a visit. Almost certainly, it will be a real, actual visit, from a big enough group of Republicans to make it clear to George and Dick that they really do have a choice-- face impeachment or resign.

Of course, when Bush gets the visit from the Republicans, he will drag James Baker from wherever he is, to negotiate a deal. Cheney will pull out his shotgun and shoot at them, probably at a more moderate one, like Arlen Spector or Olympia Snowe who will surely be amongst the resignation demand team.

The Dems will be straining at the leash to take any offer. That will be a mistake. Bush and Cheney do NOT deserve to get off with just resigning. They must plead guilty to crimes. They must do at least some time-- so they lose their right to vote. They must, as part of their "deal" agree to never speak in public, to not give speeches, to give all claims to all monies in any bank accounts they did not have upon entering office. They should pay fines consisting of all their assets. They should be put in house arrest-- on Bush's remote ranch. Government security agents should be supplied to keep all visitors out except family, and to keep Bush and Cheney in. Okay-- Cheney can do house arrest in some ranch in Wyoming.

There are those who would imprison these criminals for life, and those who believe they deserve execution as mass murderers. The US should also allow the world court to try them, with Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Tommy Franks, and a number of the generals who allowed or even observed torture and other war crimes. The US owes the world access to the criminals who got out of control. We need to clear our Karma. Allowing justice to take its course-- true justice, not the perverted, despicable thing that Gonzalez, Yoo and company perpetrated upon this nation and this planet.

On the other side, James Baker and Bush's few remaining friends will negotiate on behalf of Bush. Some of my wish list of sentencing elements will fall. I hope not many. They are designed to prevent Bush or Cheney from contining to do damage or to benefit from their crimes.

The American people will see the light and they will make at least most of these things come to pass. And it will be sweet to see Bush and Cheney and friends do the perp walks they so richly deserve.

They can then use the threat of investigations against Bush to get him to agree not to use his Veto power on any legislation they pass. Then they can get to work repairing the damage done to America, starting with the minimum wage and hopefully moving on to repealing the Anti-American "Patriot Act".

If the Democrats are tough enough and can maintain the political will, then they have the chance of the century to pass legislation without fear of veto by using Bush's own corruption against him.

They never said that impeachment was off the table for Cheney, so there will be no real political repercussions for doing it. By impeaching Cheney first, would also insure that should they decide to impeach Bush at some point, Cheney could not replace him. But so much more can potentially be accomplished by going to Bush and offering to leave him alone so long as he cooperates with passing the legislation. They may even be able to force Bush to rightly take responsibility for his lost war and preclude the GOP attempting to tar the Democrats with it.



I am a classic Gen x'er with a short attention span, high intelligence, low motivation and an overabundance of cynicism that the world just keeps re-justifying. At various points in my life I have been a Journalist, a Personal Trainer, a D.J., a Photographer, a Paralegal, a Waiter, a Pizza Deliverator and a Network Engineer...among other things.

As for premise (1), Democrats spent all year opposing warrantless eavesdropping (mostly mild and reluctant opposition, though in some cases passionate). That opposition culminated in a House vote just 6 weeks before the election where 85% of Democrats voted against a bill to legalize warrantless eavesdropping.

Thereafter, Republicans did everything possible to make that an issue in the campaign, and Democrats just crushed Republicans in the election. As but one example, 12-term GOP incumbent Nancy Johnson made her support for warrantless eavesdropping (and her challenger's opposition to it) a centerpiece of her campaign. She was easily defeated.

As for premise (2), Russ Feingold announced today, definitively, that he is not running for President in 2008.

It is hard to overstate how ignorant and wrong Beltway pundits are about everything, and how barren and corrupt inside-Washington conventional wisdom is.

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.

And in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, he seemed to be the only elected official immune from irrational pressures, as he not only was the only Senator to vote against the "Patriot Act," but was also the only Senator who refused to blindly pledge his loyalty to limitless presidential power, emphasizing on the Senate floor as early as September 14, 2001:

Like any legislation, this resolution [authorizing military force in Afghanistan and against Al Qaeda] is not perfect. I have some concern that readers may misinterpret the preamble language that the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism as a new grant of power; rather it is merely a statement that the President has existing constitutional powers . . . .

Congress owns the war power. But by this resolution, Congress loans it to the President in this emergency. In so doing, we demonstrate our respect and confidence in both our Commander in Chief and our Constitution. . . .

Our response will be judged by friends and foes, by history, and by ourselves. It must stand up to the highest level of scrutiny: It must be appropriate and constitutional.

Within this confusing scenario, it will be easy to point fingers at an ever increasing number of enemies, to believe that the "the enemy'' is all around us, that the enemy may even be our neighbor. The target can seem to grow larger and larger every day, before the first strike even occurs. And this, of course, is exactly what the terrorists want. They seek to inflate their numbers and their influence by retreating into the shadows. They seek to turn us against each other, and to turn us against our friends and allies across the world, but we will not allow this to happen.

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.

Not only do they believe in nothing, they think that a Belief in Nothing is a mark of sophistication and wisdom. Those who believe in things too much -- who display political passion or who take their convictions and ideals seriously (Feingold, Howard Dean) -- are either naive or, worse, are the crazy, irrational, loudmouth masses and radicals who disrupt the elevated, measured world of the high-level, dispassionate Beltway sophisticates (James Carville, David Broder, Fred Hiatt). They are interested in, even obsessed with, every aspect of the political process except for deeply held political beliefs -- the only part that really matters or that has any real worth.

For that reason, when Feingold announced his censure resolution, the merits of it were virtually ignored (i.e., should something actually be done about the President's deliberate lawbreaking? What are the consequences for our country for doing nothing?). Instead, Feingold's announcement was immediately cast as a disingenuous political maneuver and discussed only in cynical terms of how it would politically harm the Democrats.

This was the first line of the AP article on Feingold's resolution:

While only two Democrats in the Senate have embraced Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring President Bush, the idea is increasing his standing among many Democratic voters as he ponders a bid for the party's presidential nomination in 2008. . . .

And as is so often the case, Beltway Republicans and Democrats worked in tandem with this cynical, substance-less storyline -- because it's how they all really think. Thus, the Post reported that Republicans "denounced the censure resolution as a political stunt by an ambitious lawmaker positioning himself to run for president in 2008."

Many Democrats (though not all), petrified by Feingold's stand, made the same accusation. As David Limbaugh gleefully recounted:

Feingold's move is not one of moral courage, but raw political ambition. In the words of Democratic senator Mark Dayton, Feingold's move is "an overreaching step by someone who is grandstanding and running for president at the expense of his own party and his own country."

And the AP article also reported this:

"This is such a gift," Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show. The National Review came to the same conclusion. In an online editorial titled, "Feingold's Gift to the GOP," the conservative magazine wrote that Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman would hug Feingold if given the chance.

Marshall Wittmann insisted that Feingold was dooming the Democrats and if Democrats didn't drop the whole issue of warrantless eavesdropping, it would ensure GOP victory:

The Moose avers that Russ Feingold is the GOP's man of the hour. . . . . Here is the bottom line - the American people are not going to penalize the President for being overly zealous in preventing a destruction of an American city. That is what the Republicans know and they are gleeful about a debate on this issue. And they are co-dependent on the Democratic left to keep this issue alive.

And then there was this most wretched column by Eleanor Clift, vividly echoing all of those brilliant Beltway insights with one textbook case study on how our Beltway political class, across the board, "thinks":

Republicans finally had something to celebrate this week when Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called for censuring George W. Bush. Democrats must have a death wish. Just when the momentum was going against the president, Feingold pops up to toss the GOP a life raft.

It's brilliant strategy for him, a dark horse presidential candidate carving out a niche to the left of Hillary Clinton. . . . . There is a vacuum in the heart of the party's base that Feingold fills, but at what cost? . . . .

The broader public sees it as political extremism. Just when the Republicans looked like they were coming unhinged, the Democrats serve up a refresher course on why they can't be trusted with the keys to the country.

[The same thing happened when Feingold announced that he favors same-sex marriages. He can't possibly be motivated by actual belief, so AP tells us why he really did it: "Sen. Russ Feingold, a potential presidential candidate, said Tuesday he supports giving gays and lesbians the right to marry, again positioning himself to the left of possible 2008 rivals."]

All of this Beltway certainty about the motives of Feingold's Censure Resolution and the political consequences of it could not have been any more wrong. Feingold obviously hadn't decided to run for President and apparently wasn't planning on it. And 2006 saw endless controversy over the NSA program -- from hearings to court cases to Feingold's resolution to a final House vote in which Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the President's NSA program -- and Americans stomped on the Republicans and put the Democrats in power.

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.

All of that combines to produce a worldview that is as inaccurate as it is bereft of integrity and principle. The excitement over new politicians like Jim Webb and Jon Tester -- and the passion inspired by Russ Feingold and even Howard Dean -- has nothing to do with long-standing and increasingly obsolete liberal/conservative stereotypes (the only prism through which the media can analyze the election results, which is why they are so confused). Instead, the excitement is due to a widespread hunger for people who are outside of and immune to the entire, soul-less Beltway machinery -- a system which, in every aspect, is broken and empty at its core.

UPDATE: One of the best/worst examples of this emptiness comes, unsurprisingly, from The New Republic, courtesy of Ryan Lizza, who chortled at the political stupidity of Feingold's censure resolution but -- of course -- knew exactly why Feingold was doing it (h/t Michael):

Feingold is mystified by the reaction. Democrats, he said this week, are "cowering with this president's numbers so low." The liberal blogosphere, aghast at how wimpy Democrats are being, has risen up in a chorus of outrage: . . . .

The nature of the split is obvious. Feingold is thinking about 2008. Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, and other Democrats are thinking about 2006. Feingold cares about wooing the anti-Bush donor base on the web and putting some of his '08 rivals--Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Evan Bayh--in uncomfortable positions. Reid and Schumer care about winning the six seats it will take for Democrats to win control of the Senate . . . .

So the partisans on the left cheering Feingold appear to have both the policy and the politics wrong. Censure is meaningless. Changing the FISA law is the way to address Bush's overreach. And the only way for Democrats to change FISA is for them to take back the Senate. This week, Feingold's censure petition has made that goal just a little bit more difficult to achieve. What an ass.

So knowing and sophisticated. So wise and insightful to the hard-core political realities. Always above the lowly impassioned masses and their misguided, simplistic notions (such as the belief that there should be consequences for presidential lawbreaking -- how excitable and stupid that is). TNR is always so cleverly restrained and calculating.

And the stupid liberal blogosphere -- cheering on Feingold's stand against the President. As though that's about anything other than Feingold's '08 presidential run. How "obvious" that is.

And all of that is to say nothing about the complete incoherence of Lizza's "argument." How could "changing FISA" -- what Lizza calls "the way to address Bush's overreach" -- possibly be a solution to the president's lawbreaking when the whole point is that the President claims he has no obligation to comply with FISA because Congress can't limit his eavesdropping activities?

Censure was the only way (short of impeachment) for Congress to force the President to comply with the law and to express its objections to the President's lawbreaking. "Changing FISA" was -- and still is -- a complete non-sequitur to the President's conduct, which is based on the premise that FISA (like all laws that limit the President's conduct concerning national security) is a nullity. But to Lizza, that's the more moderate, passionless and less disruptive course. Therefore, by definition, it's the best one -- the only one that responsible and sophisticated political experts like him would ever consider.