I guess not all censures are created equally

I have a habit of asking people, who present me with something in which they want me to share their righteous indignation: "what principle has been violated?" What I'm getting at is: is this just a matter of you not liking something? or is there actually a principle at stake here? If it is a matter of principle, then we should be prepared to be critical of whomever commits the misdeed, even if it's committed by us or another member of our tribe.

I have a requirement that there be a certain amount of logical consistency in matters of principle and I have written about the idea that principles, like laws, should be applied blindly. It is a common occurrence in Canada for the opposition to call for a minister to resign in light of some alleged act of wrong-doing. My immediate response is to ask: would you be saying the same thing if your party were in power and the minister in question was a member of your party? Because, if not, you're a hypocrite.

In this current debate surrounding Sen. Russ Feingold's motion to censure Bush, a number of Democratic senators are demurring, indicating that waiting and seeing are the appropriate responses or even saying that it's not appropriate to vote to censure Bush. I find it outrageous that there are fewer than a handful of Democratic senators who are on the record as supporting this motion, in light of the fact that in February 1999, 19 of these same Democrats co-sponsored Dianne Feinstein's resolution to censure Bill Clinton after his impeachment had ended in an acquittal! That's right... censure for lying about the blowjob but not for the on-going illegal spying! How do they rationalize that?

Glenn says:

Making matters much more inexplicable, and infuriating, is this list, compiled by Liberal Oasis, of the 24 Senators (19 Democrats, 4 Republicans and Jeffords) who are still in the Senate and who co-sponsored Dianne Feinstein's resolution to censure Bill Clinton (not just for lying but expressly for having an "inappropriate relationship" with an adult woman). Included on the list are many Senators who are afraid thus far to support Feingold's resolution -- including Schumer, Reid, Landrieu, Feinstein and Kennedy. Most political positions are subject to reasonable debate. Favoring a censure of Bill Clinton while opposing a censure of George Bush isn't one of them.

And he adds:

Thus, the Senators who supported Feinstein's censure resolution (which includes 19 Democrats who are still in the Senate) were urging that Clinton be censured on the merits of that issue, not as a tactical alternative to impeachment. It is simply indefensible for Senators who favored censuring Clinton not to support censure of Bush, whose law-breaking is repeated, ongoing, and relating to much more serious matters than what Feinstein's resolution called Clinton's "inappropriate relationship."