wishing doesn’t make it true

Finally, cracks in the dam seem to be growing, if not widening.

Senator Arlen Specter has called for a hearing on Sen. Russ Feingold’s resolution of censure in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It will be held Friday.

That scurrying sound you hear is the sound of Feingold’s fellow “democrats” heading for cover. When it comes to backbone, the vast majority of the Senate’s democrats continue to show themselves to be lacking.

The odd thing is, there is a growing majority in this country – all located outside the Beltway it is important to point out – who are desperate to see some signs of a loyal opposition to this incredibly incompetent, unrepentantly repressive, extraordinarily overreaching (mis)Administration. The public wants to see George W. Bush held accountable to the law and to the Constitution of the United States on which it stands.

Understandably, it is only inside the Beltway that Feingold is considered a pariah. Everywhere else he has gone from being Senator Who? to being a contender, if not the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for President. His favorable numbers almost double those of the president.

Still, the powers that be are working overtime to undermine Feingold. Calls to senate offices of ranking members are frustrating, to say the least. An account of a call to the offices of Senator Edward Kennedy yield no satisfaction – even though the staffer taking the call clearly favors supporting Sen. Feingold.

Kennedy refuses to support or oppose the resolution of censure. Instead, he’s holding out for a full Congressional investigation. The fact that supporting the former does not preclude the latter – and in fact could actually prompt the latter – appears lost on the Massachusetts democrat. It’s dumbfounding.

Meanwhile, gatekeepers of mainstream media are doing their level best to support the (mis)Administration by sitting on their hands.

Media outlets that regularly poll the nation to gauge public opinion have refused to query on the subject of censure, thereby leaving the door open for outbursts like the one made by “Dead-eye” Dick Cheney Friday.

“Some Democrats in Congress have decided the president is the enemy and the terrorist surveillance program is grounds for censuring the president," Cheney told a Republican fund-raiser in Orlando, Florida, on Friday, adding, "The American people have already made their decision. They agree with the president."

The fact that the shotgun-blasting veep is lying through his teeth is immaterial. There is no evidence – no statistical evidence, at least – to give proof to the lie. Anecdotal evidence doesn’t cut it. And off course, since a lie will circle the world three times before the truth can get out of bed, it’s easy to see the strategy here. Bush and company have been working overtime to tell the public that the domestic surveillance program is legal – evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Thankfully, it appears that, finally, the great Republican echo chamber finally is falling on deafened ears. The lies have come so readily and so steadily that the public is turned off. It’s the boy who cried wolf scenario in action.

We should begin seeing polling data on censure, and perhaps even impeachment, beginning this week. And if we flood the offices of our own senator with phone calls and emails, we can push their fat asses off the fence and get them into the game.

More soon.