I chuckled over Average American's comment about Senator Feingold "being left at the alter" (The Elephant's Wrappings). Once again the BAA Boy stakes his his claim as a rank and file spearcarrier in steerage of Bush's rudderless Ship of State. Maybe I give him too much credit. That turn of phrase sounds myopic and selfserving enough to have come from Rush - but, then, attribution isn't one of AA's strong points.

Feingold's proposed censure of President Bush continues to sweep through the blogs like a grassroots wildfire. True, initially, some Democrats wanted to forget warrantless wiretapping, because engaging it would let Bush claim that he's tougher on terrorists than his partisan enemies. Still others, who share Feingold's frustration with the administration's stonewalling, want more information before challenging Bush on his little secret spying effort. And both groups were furious that Feingold grabbed headlines away from those delicious stories about Republican divisions and defections.

But, to characterize that reluctance as being "left at the alter" is hilariously flip - either the remark was made in jest or is politically naïve.

With his censure motion, Feingold once again asserted himself as a no-nonsense Democrat and he has triggered a confrontation within the Democratic Party reminiscent of where the Republicans were 20 years ago.

Then, "Scoop" Jackson, Pat Moynihan and others were sewing the seeds that would bloom as the Neoconservative movement. They succeeded in forming a coalition with the politically savvy mainstream Republicans and the rest is history.

Democrats, in the post-Clinton era, have yet to develop that healthy relationship between their activists, willing to test and expand the conventional limits on political debate, and the politicians who have to calculate what works in creating an election victory. Feingold has presented the party with the opportunity for that reconciliation. In fact, he's coerced the party into the position where it cannot avoid considering the benefits of that reconciliation.

Maintaining the centrist policies of the Clinton years while embracing the "we're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore" faction, represented by Feinstein, would more closely mirror national sentiment and enhance the probability of regaining the Congressional majority this November.

That reconciliation would also play well with the brewing Republican rebellion. After their acceptance of the Neoconservative movement, Republicans let their idealists, their ideologues, their loudmouths and their me-too spearcarriers to push the boundaries of discussion farther and farther to the right, well beyond any limits envisioned by Jackson and Moynihan.

Today, the Neocons are singleminded -- it's all about power -- winning it, maintaining it, domestically and globally, at any cost, by any means. During the past five years, moderate Republicans have been alienated as the Neocon agenda, rather than any discernible political philosophy, became the driving force in the party.

Now, even traditional Conservative Republicans who stayed aboard for the second ride to victory are beginning to question their power-driven leadership. Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein waggishly termed the recently vented Republican anger as "battered-Congress syndrome" -- anger long suppressed out of loyalty or fear.

So far, that rebellion is just around the edges. Sure they forced Bush to back down on a deal that would have put port operations in the hands of the United Arab Emirates. But where's the port oversight? The Republican Congress's response to Bush's wildly unbalanced budget? Raise the debt limit and unbalance it some more. Their response to Bush's little domestic spying secret which, by most reckonings, is a violation of Congress's own statutes? Figure out a way to keep it secret and make it legal.

This must be what BAA Boy refers to as "being in the majority".  Republicans can still have their way with Lady Liberty. 

And when it comes to the many controversial and still mysterious issues at the heart of the Bush Administration -- among them, why he went to war, how abuse and torture became a widespread military practice, why the war has been so costly in lives and money, etc. etc. -- the Republican-controlled Congress seems publicly unrebellious, actively and intentionally incurious. However, countersigns are appearing elsewhere, in the most interesting places.

Last week, former Reagan insider and speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal of her shock that Bush is at heart fiscally irresponsible:

"If I'd thought he was a big-spending Rockefeller Republican--that is, if I'd thought he was a man who could not imagine and had never absorbed the damage big spending does--I wouldn't have voted for him."

(Hey Big Spender: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110008093)

"If I'd known…" and "I never meant for…" and "If I'd ever dreamt that…" are face saving, politically-lifesaving defenses for disenchanted Republicans, whether true or not. Feingold's censure motion gives these folks a safe haven.  

It's over 7 months until election day. Will the Democratic strategists sieze the chance to publicly demonstrate what they stand for?  Will they become the party of the people once again?  Feingold's shown them one path!

"Left at the alter..." Hah!