CENSURE THIS EDITORIAL

The members of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board really outdid themselves with this one.

They argue that although Russ Feingold's measure to censure President Bush is a lost cause, his heart is in the right place.

That's weird even for the Journal Sentinel.

Yes, what a thoughtful, heartfelt gesture to want to censure the President!

Good grief.

Sen. Russ Feingold has been right on the Iraq war even when many doubted him. He voted against giving President Bush the power to go to war. He has consistently pressured the administration to bring the troops home.

But the Wisconsin Democrat's call last weekend to censure Bush and other administration officials is a futile gesture.

In other words, in a perfect world, Bush would be censured. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen.

How lame!

The Board doesn't seem to realize that the Senate does not have the power to censure the President.

"Many constitutional experts hold that motions to censure the President violate the Constitution's prohibition on bills of attainder."

Feingold should be censured for proposing to do something unconstitutional.

(Note to self: Send a copy of the U.S. Constitution to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board.)

Make no mistake, the troops should come home - and soon. The war was a colossal mistake that the United States has paid for in lost lives, lost respect abroad and billions from the federal treasury. And it didn't have to be. Bush had the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, horror cornered in the Pakistani borderlands but chose to divert resources to Iraq - a breathtakingly bad decision.

This is really too much.

The board implies that Bush could have captured bin Laden if not for the war in Iraq.

Do you want to talk about a string of "breathtakingly bad decisions"?

Bill Clinton had eight years to get bin Laden. According to Richard Miniter, when Clinton was offered bin Laden, he took a pass.

On March 3, 1996, U.S. ambassador to Sudan, Tim Carney, Director of East African Affairs at the State Department, David Shinn, and a member of the CIA's directorate of operations' Africa division met with Sudan's then-Minister of State for Defense Elfatih Erwa in a Rosslyn, Virginia hotel room. Item number two on the CIA's list of demands was to provide information about Osama bin Laden. Five days later, Erwa met with the CIA officer and offered more than information. He offered to arrest and turn over bin Laden himself. Two years earlier, the Sudan had turned over the infamous terrorist, Carlos the Jackal to the French. He now sits in a French prison. Sudan wanted to repeat that scenario with bin Laden in the starring role.

Clinton administration officials have offered various explanations for not taking the Sudanese offer. One argument is that an offer was never made. But the same officials are on the record as saying the offer was "not serious." Even a supposedly non-serious offer is an offer. Another argument is that the Sudanese had not come through on a prior request so this offer could not be trusted. But, as Ambassador Tim Carney had argued at the time, even if you believe that, why not call their bluff and ask for bin Laden?

The Clinton administration simply did not want the responsibility of taking Osama bin Laden into custody. Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger is on the record as saying: "The FBI did not believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States." Even if that was true — and it wasn't — the U.S. could have turned bin Laden over to Yemen or Libya, both of which had valid warrants for his arrest stemming from terrorist activities in those countries. Given the legal systems of those two countries, Osama would have soon ceased to be a threat to anyone.

After months of debating how to respond to the Sudanese offer, the Clinton administration simply asked Sudan to deport him. Where to? Ambassador Carney told me what he told the Sudanese: "Anywhere but Somalia."

I believe that the Sandy Berger "Dox in Sox" affair stems directly from an effort to cover up Clinton's failure to get bin Laden.

On the evening of Oct. 2, 2003, former White House national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stashed highly classified documents he had taken from the National Archives beneath a construction trailer at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so he could surreptitiously retrieve them later and take them to his office, according to a newly disclosed government investigation.

The documents he took detailed how the Clinton administration had responded to the threat of terrorist attacks at the end of 1999. Berger removed a total of five copies of the same document without authorization and later used scissors to destroy three before placing them in his office trash, the National Archives inspector general concluded in a Nov. 4, 2005, report.

Maybe someday we'll know what drove Berger to go to such extremes.

Miniter sums up how many times Bill Clinton lost bin Laden.

Miniter: Here's a rundown. The Clinton administration:

1. Did not follow-up on the attempted bombing of Aden marines in Yemen.

2. Shut the CIA out of the 1993 WTC bombing investigation, hamstringing their effort to capture bin Laden.

3. Had Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a key bin Laden lieutenant, slip through their fingers in Qatar.

4. Did not militarily react to the al Qaeda bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

5. Did not accept the Sudanese offer to turn bin Laden.

6. Did not follow-up on another offer from Sudan through a private back channel.

7. Objected to Northern Alliance efforts to assassinate bin Laden in Afghanistan.

8. Decided against using special forces to take down bin Laden in Afghanistan.

9. Did not take an opportunity to take into custody two al Qaeda operatives involved in the East African embassy bombings. In another little scoop, I am able to show that Sudan arrested these two terrorists and offered them to the FBI. The Clinton administration declined to pick them up and they were later allowed to return to Pakistan.

10. Ordered an ineffectual, token missile strike against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory.

11. Clumsily tipped off Pakistani officials sympathetic to bin Laden before a planned missile strike against bin Laden on August 20, 1998. Bin Laden left the camp with only minutes to spare.

12-14. Three times, Clinton hesitated or deferred in ordering missile strikes against bin Laden in 1999 and 2000.

15. When they finally launched and armed the Predator spy drone plane, which captured amazing live video images of bin Laden, the Clinton administration no longer had military assets in place to strike the archterrorist.

16. Did not order a retaliatory strike on bin Laden for the murderous attack on the USS Cole.

The Board's suggestion that Bush blew it when it comes to bin Laden is ridiculous.

It's inconceivable that American forces had the chance to capture or kill him but didn't take it.

Only the looniest of Leftist loons, like the Editorial Board, could assert something so absurd.

But censure has zero chance of passing Congress and will only waste time when other matters are pressing. The Senate had its chance last week and couldn't get enough votes to pass a resolution forcing Bush to commit to a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Earlier, the House tried and failed to tie war funding to withdrawal. Why Feingold believes he would have any better luck is a mystery.

Is Feingold's massive ego a mystery? Is his pursuit of his personal political goals a mystery?

We agree with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who told The Washington Post: "The president already has the mark of the American people that he's the worst president we've ever had. I don't think we need a censure resolution in the Senate to prove that."

So never mind censure, but do keep pressuring Bush in more meaningful ways.

The JS Board has gone on the record agreeing with the despicable Harry Reid.

"The president already has the mark of the American people that he's the worst president we've ever had."

Wisconsin's largest (though seriously floundering) newspaper has declared its agreement that Bush is marked as the worst president America has EVER had.

That's worth repeating.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board believes that Bush can be cited as the worst president in American history.

Talk about going completely over the edge!

It's official. The JS Editorial Board has lost touch with reality.

Forget about censure. The Board wants Bush to be pressured in more meaningful ways.

Like what?

Impeachment?

The Board calling for Bush's impeachment can't be too far off.