NP: The Beatles, 1

No, the title has nothing to do with the singer. There's a line in Frank Zappa's "Bobby Brown Goes Down" that reads "I do not think I'm too extreme," and it's time for me to once again point out that while the DailyKos community continues to insist they're not way the fuck out on the leftmost fringes of the spectrum, they will say things like the most important reason the president should be censured is that his approval ratings are low. Impeccable logic there, kids.

I'm not discounting Senator Feingold's efforts here, even if they do seem motivated by presidential ambition, just the way the left wingers are running with that particular ball.

Why motivated by presidential ambition? It seems pretty simple to me. Feingold is one of very few Democrats who can stand up to George Bush on Iraq and national security because, if I remember correctly, he was one of very few Democratic legislators who didn't vote for the authorization to go to war. So he's immune to the "but you voted for it" corner that nearly every other Democrat has painted themselves into. As such, he's got immeasurable lefty cred. Plus there's the whole name recognition as champion of campaign finance reform thing.

Everybody's talking about Hillary running for president in 2008, but keep an eye on Feingold. In the bigger, relentlessly centrist picture, I'm really curious to see how the race turns out on both sides. I could see independent candidacies on both sides if the winners of their respective primaries come out too close to either the extreme or the middle. The easy bet is that the GOP tacks hard right and Rudy Giuliani runs as an independent.