I’m searching for a reason. Here are some I’ve heard advanced:
- They’re cowards.
- It doesn’t move the ball forward (see also here).
- They actually believe that Bush has done the right thing (but weren’t above making him squirm) (see also here).
- They’re waiting to see which way the wind blows before jumping on Feingold’s bandwagon.
- They don’t want to energize the Republican base.
- UPDATE:Â This view from Tom Maguire at JustOneMinute is a bit like a combination of a couple of the above but it’s good enough to quote:
The folks at the top know their base represent views that are unelectable and out of touch, so they will move on.
Got any others?
UPDATE: Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice considers the same question in a reasonable, balanced, and analytical way and comes up with just two explanations:
One way of looking at this is that a censure resolution is a just comeuppance for Bush for seeming to feel that because he’s President he can simply pick and choose which laws he wants to obey and for the fact that warrantless wiretaps only came to light due to a media leak.
Another way of looking at it is that the way things were going, Democrats could have sat back and watched Bush and the GOP dig a bigger hole for themselves, as the party increasingly lost some members of its coalition and as news media attention began to focus heavily on the administration, its controversies and its deficiencies.
I don’t find those explanations, severally or collectively, to be dispositive.
They don’t want to embarrass themselves by showing how small a minority they are.