Feingold is brilliant.

After I posted this morning on trying to fracture the Republican coalition, fundamentalist Bush supporters and corporate interests, using immigration as example, Russ Feingold came out shooting at another fracture which holds very little potential downside for the Dems.

Basically, he will be proposing a vote on Monday morning on Censuring the President for the "unlawful authorization of wiretaps." (3 minute video from his appearance on This Week.)

This is absolutely brilliant tactics as it stresses the Republican coalition by pitting the libertarian edge of the party against the Bush loyalists. I don't know all the procedurals, but I can't imagine the Senate leadership will let this come to a vote, but certainly it will be the main topic of discussion all Monday and will destroy any hope the White House had of getting back on their talking points all week.

And the optimism and speculation of who will be the Republican nominee for 2008 coming out of the straw poll at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference? Gone. No discussions of a hopeful GOP future; all focus on the crappy Republican present.

Brilliant.

The Dems really need to learn how to do this, to set the talk show agenda, which at this point, since they control neither legislative body or the presidency, is their best mechanism for getting out their message. To do so, they do have to trust the talking heads to pile on, but with Bush's poll numbers where they are, I think we can count on that. They thrive on he said/she said conflict after all.

There will certainly be some blowback, (I can already hear Chris Matthews chiding Dems for this) but as the party out of power you just have to accept that, knowing that on a perception level, the Republicans will take the lion's share of blame for any sense of chaos in Washington.

UPDATE: Later in the show, Frist more or less accused Feingold of aiding Al Qaeda, aiding Iran, and putting your family at risk through this move. I smell desperation. (By the way, I find the mixing of the Al Qaeda reference and the use of the pronoun "they" to refer to dems in the second paragraph telling. Here's the video to give the delivery.)

FRIST: George, what was interesting in listening to my good friend, Russ, is that he mentioned protecting the American people only one time.....

And I think it, in part, is a political move because here we are, the Republican Party, the leadership in the Congress, supporting the president of the United States as commander in chief who is out there fighting Al Qaida and the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and the people who have sworn -- have sworn -- to destroy Western civilization and all the families listening to us; and they're out now attacking -- at least today through this proposed censure vote -- out attacking our commander in chief.....

And as I was listening to it, I was hoping deep inside that the leadership in Iran and other people who really have the U.S. not in their best interests are not listening because of the terrible -- the terrible -- signal it sends.

(sorry for the long post, but I wanted show Frist accusing Feingold of aiding the enemy.