Feingold on the Campaign Trail

Did you think Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold was fulfilling his duties as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee when he questioned Judge Alito at the confirmation hearings on Tuesday?

Did Feingold spend his day working for the American people?

If that's what you think, I think you're wrong.

Feingold was on the presidential campaign trail and he was loving it.

He relished his opportunity to get national attention. It was obvious by his body language and his expression, his voice and his attitude. He oozed self-importance.

Feingold was combative and disrespectful, not tough.

He was accusatory and abrasive, not constructive.

It was as though Feingold had taken lessons from Dr. Dean.

Clearly, he was more interested in using his allotted thirty minutes to promote himself than question Alito.

In short, Feingold wanted to get noticed. He wanted to stir things up. He wanted to solidify his position as the darling du jour of the radical Left and the media. He wanted his sound bites heard and his quotes printed.

He succeeded.

Feingold wasn't satisfied with slashing away at Alito. He was determined to takes swipes at the Bush Administration by creating an aura of corruption about Alito's preparation for the hearings.


One of his most pointed attacks was Feingold's suggestion that Alito was Bush's puppet, that the Administration told him what to think and how to respond to questions regarding presidential powers and recent revelations about wiretapping.

Transcript

(Excerpt)

FEINGOLD: Noted a few times today that the questions of the president's power in the wiretapping area and other areas will likely come before the courts, including the Supreme Court. You just did that.

As I understand it, you've prepared for these hearings over the past few months with a variety of practice sessions. Some have called them moot courts or murder boards. Was the question of the president's power in time of war to take action contrary to a federal statute ever raised in any way during any of the practice sessions for these hearings?

ALITO: I have had practice sessions on a great variety of subjects, and I don't know whether that specific issue was brought up. It may have been. But what I can tell you...

FEINGOLD: You don't recall whether this issue...

ALITO: No, the issue of FISA certainly has been something that I have studied, and this is not -- FISA is not something that has come before me as a judge.

FEINGOLD: But you don't recall whether or not this was covered in the practice sessions?

ALITO: No, no, the specific question that you raised about the conflicts between the president's authority to say that a statute enacted by Congress should not be followed. But the general area of wiretapping and foreign intelligence surveillance, wiretapping...

(CROSSTALK)

FEINGOLD: ... the recent events that have led to this dispute...

ALITO: And the recent events.

FEINGOLD: ... and the possibility that it may come before you. Right, Judge?

ALITO: That's correct.

FEINGOLD: OK. Who was present at these practice sessions where these questions were discussed? And who gave you feedback or suggestions or made any comment whatsoever on the answers you gave?

ALITO: Nobody at these sessions or at any of the sessions that I had has ever told me what to say in response to any question.

FEINGOLD: I just asked -- were there no comments...

ALITO: The comments that I've received...

FEINGOLD: ... or no advice?

SPECTER: Let him answer the question, Senator Feingold.

ALITO: The advice that I've received has gone generally to familiarizing me with the format of this hearing, which is very different from the format of legal proceedings in which I've participated either as a judge or previously when I was arguing a legal issue as a lawyer.

But nobody has told me what to say. Everything that I've said is an expression of my own ideas.

FEINGOLD: And I don't question that, Judge. I asked you, though, whether anybody gave you any feedback or suggestions or made any comment whatsoever on the answers you gave in the practice sessions.

ALITO: In general? Yes, they've given me feedback, mostly about the form of the question, the form of the answers.

FEINGOLD: Have you received any other advice or suggestions directly or indirectly from anyone in the administration on how you should answer these questions?

ALITO: Not as to the substance of the question. No, Senator.

FEINGOLD: Only as to the style?

ALITO: That's correct; as to the format. Not as to what I should say I think about any of these questions. Absolutely not. I've been a judge for 15 years. And I've made up my own mind during all of that time.

FEINGOLD: Again, I'm not suggesting that.

ALITO: I just want to make that clear

FEINGOLD: I asking whether or not somebody talked about the possible legal bases that the president might assert with regard to the ability to do this wiretapping outside of the FISA statute. Was that kind of a discussion held?

ALITO: Nobody actually told me the bases that the president was asserting. I found the letter that was released last week or the week before by an assistant attorney general setting out arguments relating to this on the Internet myself and printed it out.

And I studied it to get some idea of some of the issues that might be involved here. And I looked at some other materials that legal scholars have put out on this issue. But nobody in the administration actually has briefed me on what the administration's position is with respect to this issue.

FEINGOLD: Does it strike you as being inappropriate for members of the Department of Justice or the White House staff who are currently defending the president's actions in the NSA domestic spying program to be giving you advice on how you might handle questions about that topic in the hearing?

ALITO: It would be very inappropriate for them to tell me what I should say. And I wouldn't have been receptive to that sort of advice. And I did not receive that kind of advice.

Feingold's conduct, the way he snapped at Alito and interrupted him as he tried to answer the questions, was not befitting a U.S. Senator.

Specter was forced to attempt to rein Feingold in because he was so out of control.

To use a few of Feingold's words, it strikes me as being inappropriate for a member of the Senate, who is currently trying to make political hay out of the Bush Administration's efforts to fight terror, to use the Supreme Court confirmation hearings as an opportunity to champion his own agenda and spotlight himself as a 2008 presidential candidate.

In contrast to my view, Feingold and his supporters on the fringe radical Left no doubt considered Tuesday to be a successful day on the 2008 campaign trail.