the censure argument: why does GOP want to coronate a king rather than protect America’s freed

Steve Soto at the Left Coaster and Christy Hardin Smith at firedoglake both have good suggestions for expanding the framework of the censure debate. Steve suggests that "Feingold Should Broaden His Censure Rationale" "But assuming that Feingold's resolution runs into opposition this week because it deals with an issue for which the jury is still out (the NSA spying issue), perhaps Feingold can pivot and catch Specter off guard by reframing the reason for his proposal onto ground that is already established: unchecked executive power not granted in the Constitution. Even if Specter and the rest of the GOP enablers want to hide behind a yet-to-be-concluded inquiry and resolution aimed at dealing with the specific issue of NSA spying, there isn’t one GOP senator who could justify letting Bush decide the true meaning of Congress when he issues his bill signing statements. A case in point was this past week, when it was reported that Bush signed the Patriot Act extension and decided in his bill signing statement that he wouldn’t necessarily comply with its reporting requirements to Congress on how the FBI was using the Act’s powers." -- Christy recommends "Better Framing on Censure" She highlights a comment from reader Anne: "The question isn’t ’should the president be censured?’ The question is, ‘Why does it take a censure resolution to get the majority party to pay even lip service to fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide oversight with respect to the actions and policies of the executive and judicial branches of this government?’ It’s time for the Congress, and particularly the Republicans, to decide whether choosing to protect the president instead of choosing to protect the interests of the American people, is the wisest course of action, and whether that choice is truly serving national security, or political power." Christy reiterates: "And a much better question for the American public: why does it take this much of a push to get the Rubber Stamp Republican Congress to do its constitutional duty and provide oversight? Who do they serve — their party power brokers? Or the American public and the Constitution? Isn’t it about time we started asking them about that?" ---- update: entry title altered from "the censure argument: why does rubber stamp GOP protect Bush at the expense of America's freedom?" I decided the second headline makes the point better.