Author: danps

I don’t have any problem understanding the Bush administration’s approach to executive power – it wants more, period. It seems much more focused on that than its predecessors which I explain via amateur psychology. I think George Bush understands in some locked subterranean corner of his brain that he failed the nation in the summer of 2001, and his refusal to act on the intelligence in front of him contributed to the deaths of thousands of his countrymen. Unfortunately he also has a native lack of curiosity. Most people would dive head first into the details to make sure it never happened again. Bush seems satisfied with his store of knowledge so the remedy becomes “let’s grab everything we can and have our folks sort through it.” That translates into massive power grabs. Vice President Cheney seems to be working through his own trauma from being chief of staff during an emasculated Ford administration. For him it’s almost an article of faith that the executive branch doesn’t need to answer to anyone. He’s been described as having a “little-girl crush” on strongmen elsewhere so maybe that’s his overall view of how society is best ordered.

I’ve wondered quite a bit about the rest of us though. The courts have been admirably willing to push back but how to explain the passive and timid behavior of the legislature? Until the election I thought it was just garden variety Republican solidarity, but that doesn’t explain what’s happening now. The only explanation that covers it is fear. The attacks of 9/11 had their intended effect of terrorizing us, because since then the image of Osama bin Laden stamped onto our reptilian brains has had final say over our decisions. We are afraid because the forms of terrorism are so varied and its agents so hard to identify. The Soviet Union was an actual existential threat but rarely frightened us this much. Knowing who they were and how they would attack gave us a sense of familiarity over time. It seems like the Cuban Missile Crisis represented a high point of tension between us that gradually declined over the next few decades. By 1985 were schoolchildren still doing nuclear attack drills? Was there a sense of imminent demise? There was a sense of confrontation but I think it’s safe to say the feeling (here at least) was that we weren’t about to nuke each other out of existence. We were never blasé about it but it didn’t drive all our decision making.

Terrorism has been different, and that needs to change. We need to toughen up mentally. Think about it: We took their best shot and as a nation barely broke stride. They spent years (and hundreds of thousands of dollars) planning it and what happened? We banded together. We went after their sponsor and in about eight weeks threw them out. We went after them, held back at a crucial moment and still drove them into the mountains. These days their leader is hiding out with his hand-cranked dialysis machine and thrilled if he can get a grainy videotape to al Jazeera the same year he records it. He’s lucky he’s not dead, he knows it and he knows we aren’t through with him. We were asleep at the switch, shame on us, we paid a terrible price. We’re paying attention now. We’re cooperating with law enforcement in other countries and arresting them before they can execute their plots. John Kerry was ridiculed for this in 2004 but he was right: “We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.”

Will we get hit again? Probably. It might be chemical or biological, it could be a car bomb or an IED. The nightmare scenario is a nuclear explosion. For as bad as all that sounds, none of it wipes our country off the map. We need to be vigilant and we need to be strong. We can’t keep pussyfooting around and jumping at the sound of every snapped twig. We should say, “you got us good, but we’re not going away and we give better than we get. We aren’t afraid of you.” It’s a disservice to our forebears to give away the liberties they fought so hard for in a futile attempt to be protected from everything. We must not shrink from walking among risks – they are part of life. Once again, we must be vigilant and strong. When that’s our message our representatives will notice and reflect it. Maybe they’ll even be confident to go on a month’s recess without worrying about being blamed for anything that happens during it.

The devil is in the details – sometimes even when there don’t appear to be any.

This article originally appeared on Pruning Shears.
This week has been, shall we say, illuminating.  Going into it my goal was to formalize some details for some local activism but it didn’t quite pan out that way.  Big picture: I don’t want our site to be just posts.  Mark started Pruning Shears and I signed on as a contributor because we both believe there have been egregious abuses of executive power since 9/11 and it’s now time to push back.  That means some real action in addition to exhortations.  I’ve previously argued that Vice President Cheney engaged in grave executive abuse by the way he treated prewar intelligence, and since that is included as one of the articles of impeachment the best way for us to push back right now is to get our House representative to sign them.  I would love to start thinking of the electoral map as a little impeachment garden and I don’t think it’s too grandiose to hope to coax a little bloom in Ohio’s 17th.

I’ve called Tim Ryan’s office a few times.  I think representatives have decided they can pretty well ignore phone calls urging legislative action.  Both he and Senators Voinovich and Brown have very polite staffers who answer the phone, thank you and promise to pass along your concerns.  You have to be a cynic to believe these don’t get passed along.  They don’t take your name or your number, don’t offer any information on how the reps feel about it and don’t tell you where they have appearances in the near future so you could shake their hand, look them in the eye and tell them exactly what you think.  In Voinovich’s case that’s because he’s made no public appearances in northeast Ohio during this vacation.  I figured the best way for a citizen to make an impression would be to have a petition and deliver it to Ryan’s local office.  I imagine if you had some sheets full of local voters’ signatures and you show up at his door you might get more than a polite “thank you”, so the plan could go like this:

1. Get a clipboard, pen and petitions.
2. Find a good, high traffic place with lots of potential signees.
3. Collect signatures and deliver.

I knew there would be more to it than that but I figured it would be a good outline to work with.  The big piece is to find a good place and reserve it properly – showing up somewhere out of the blue isn’t terribly persuasive.  In fact, doing that seems about one step above walking around with a “THE END IS NEAR” sandwich board.  I live near a university so I figured: High traffic, probably a decent number of impeach-Cheney enthusiasts.  Let’s contact the folks in charge of programming and set something up.  Once the space is reserved, do a little publicity, drum up some interest, get some petitions signed, deliver to Ryan, rinse and repeat until he signs H Res 333.  What could be simpler?

A lot, as it turns out.  We started by contacting someone who said “oh yeah – this is your contact.  I’ll send it to him and he’ll be in touch in a day or two.”  We didn’t hear anything for close to a week.  (PLEASE understand I’m not beating on the folks in question; I completely understand how things can fall through the cracks or get lost in the shuffle.  I routinely lose the thread on stuff and I certainly don’t expect people to drop everything when I come calling.)  So I send an email saying, hi, I was told you were sent this, does it ring any bells and if so can you give me an update?  The next day I get an email back saying “talk to this one.”  The saga continued along those lines.  I won’t go into to much detail but as of this writing I am still trying to set the details.

I initially thought it would be fairly straightforward; instead it’s already taking a few weeks more than I expected.  It’s important for citizens to be active, but if you want to have any impact at all you need to give a little thought and planning to it.  Unfortunately even coordinating within and among very small groups can get extremely slow and complicated.  I’ve worked in small groups before so I understand how it can happen but even taking that into account it seemed very gummed up.  Fortunately I’m a persistent sort and don’t discourage easily.  On the other hand it’s a little embarrassing to come up with a plan, tell it to people and keep…pushing…it…back.  Embarrassing but illuminating.

The left now bears as much responsibility for Bush’s executive power grabs as the right

For more on pruning back executive power see The Pruning Shears.

Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.
– Ronald Reagan’s "11th Commandment"

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.
– Will Rogers

These are the characteristic quotes about the two major political parties.  Last week I posted about how conservatives have betrayed the country by either remaining silent or trying to justify the Bush Administration’s power grabs, and I believe when the history of this period is written the right will be considered more to blame than the left.  I believe that until the 2006 elections Democrats (and the left in general) didn’t have enough leverage to challenge unconstitutional claims and behavior by the executive.  The trauma of 9/11 made Americans willing to bargain away a certain amount of their civil liberties for a sense of security against a barely known enemy.  The drumbeat for war against Iraq (along with masterful political choreography) maneuvered the left into a corner where their choices before the public were either support the war or be considered unpatriotic.  Once the war started it was "rally round the president" time and through the 2004 election their choices were understandable.

The next two years caused a seismic shift in public opinion and the liberals betrayal timeline starts with the 2006 elections.  The earliest, primary and most baffling part has been the Congressional Democrats’ response.  On the face of it a party that wins by substantially larger-than-expected margins and regains control of both houses ought to feel pretty empowered.  It would seem to be a call to action to repudiate the other party’s policies and actions.  Instead they’ve acted like they suffer from a political Stockholm syndrome.  In Glenn Greenwald’s words:

Since Democrats took over Congress in January, there have been three major attributes characterizing their conduct: (1) a failure to stop or restrict the war in Iraq; (2) a general failure/unwillingness to stop Bush on much of anything else of significance (FISA, a failure to reverse any of the excesses of the GOP Congress, such as the Military Commissions Act, lack of limits on his ability to attack Iran, etc.); and (3) numerous investigations, sometimes flashly but thus far inconsequential.

Just this week there has been open ridicule by Dana Milbank of the Senate leadership and Bruce Fein openly calling for Pelosi’s ouster.  Regular observers have largely concluded they are unworthy of their positions, and the longer it goes on the less they are even worthy of their seats.  Now, part of it goes back to Will Rogers – it seems to be in the Democratic party’s DNA to tend towards fractiousness, and the election takeover happened in part because of a strategic decision to recruit more-conservative challengers in conservative areas.  Fair enough.  That doesn’t mean the 110th Congress is destined to be Republican by proxy.  Once the magnitude of dissatisfaction was clear they should have adjusted.  Americans want them to confront the Bush administration.  They should begin doing so and force any laggards into line; heaven knows they’ve had a close up look at how that’s done these last few years.  If they don’t start doing what they were elected to do they deserve to be handed their opera glasses and sent back to the balcony.

Left wing activists are as much to blame by now because their activism has had no effect.  There was an initial burst of anger and in typically liberal fashion it receded as other issues took center stage.  Consider the recently defeated immigration bill as a contrast from conservatives.  As Arthur Silber put it the right wing talk show hosts

told their listeners to call and email people in Congress, and to call and email various Republican organizations, including the Republican National Committee, and to take all these actions repeatedly. They provided phone numbers and email addresses, and they indicated the general message that should be conveyed. They didn’t do this only once in one show: they did it throughout their shows, on every show….It was repeated over and over and over. You couldn’t listen to one of the major conservative talk shows without hearing it within five minutes of tuning in. It went on all the time…they condemned those Republicans, including Bush, who supported the bill without mercy. They told people to inform the RNC and all the appropriate Congressmen and Senators that they would receive no further support of any kind, including financial support, unless the bill was defeated. In their view, support of the bill was a betrayal of core conservative principles. They therefore maintained that any such alleged "conservatives" did not deserve to be in office. As one, they said that these betrayers of the conservative faith should not hold power any longer — and that the principles they believed were imperiled were more important than the continuation in power by the Republican party. As a result of all these shows hammering the identical theme without interruption, in every hour of every show on multiple shows for days at a time, Congress was inundated with calls and messages from deeply angry Republicans. And here is the point to take home: it worked.

Democrats appear to understand this difference.  They seem to know that if they withstand the initial blast from the base it will abate and there will be no consequences.  It is a comprehensive failure of leadership by progressive activists.  Ask why they can’t sustain pressure and unity of purpose and you’ll likely hear a combination of denial, spin and condescension that goes something like "that’s because we can simultaneously consider more than one thought."  Unfortunately that’s a reflex and not a response.  Progressives’ suceptibility to being disorganized and flitting about from one issue to the next to the next means that even the most pressing and fundamental problems have to compete for attention with the flavor of the day.  The fact that no actual change happens despite all their efforts is a scathing indictment and irrefutable proof of their impotence.  The fact that they won’t recognize their weaknesses and strive against them even in the midst of a Constitutional crisis is nothing less than a betrayal.

Originally posted at the Pruning Shears.

One of the worst developments on the national political scene in the last few years has been the all-but-official declaration by the right that they consider themselves Republican before American.  It’s partly understandable in light of their history and current circumstances, but that doesn’t excuse it or exempt any of those who are party to the ongoing infidelity.

Historically Republicans are a top-down hierarchy, which has its advantages and disadvantages.  One disadvantage is you’ll sometimes get a “lifetime achievement” nominee like Bob Dole that’s nearly predestined to lose in the general election.  If he paid his dues, moved up the ladder and kept the faith he’ll get the nomination because it’s his turn.  A much worse liability is that the very discipline and loyalty that can create a remarkably durable coalition can cause them to support leaders even when doing so is against America’s national interest (and sometimes their own).  That’s the situation we’re in right now.

A person like George Bush came around at the worst possible time for an organization like the Republican Party.  Eight years of Clinton left no anointed successor and the 1996 election left them in no mood to pay tribute to anyone.  They wanted a win and when someone with a good name showed up they went into a fugue state; the next thing they knew they’d hitched their wagon to him.  Questions about his proposals, experience, past and temperament that in other years might have knocked him out were batted away as partisan bias if they were addressed at all.  Once he was elected he was at the top of the heap and everyone fell into line.

He’s now had six plus years of being The Man and has firmly consolidated his hold on the party.  The leading figures on the right are loath to be critical of him out of respect for his position, but it’s lead them to neglect their duties to the Constitution.  As the nation came to grips with the trauma of 9/11 and began to get its bearings again conservatives should have been leading the charge to undo some of the more outrageous civil liberties giveaways.  Certainly by August 2007 it’s time to expect them to take a stand and the FISA legislation gives a perfect snapshot of how comprehensive their betrayal is:

House Republicans voted 186-2 in favor and Senate Republicans voted 43-0.  Among leading conservative thinkers Andrew C. McCarthy called for the total elimination of FISA court so the president could “protect our nation from those trying to slaughter us”.  (He also writes “Yes, the Patriot Act was the subject of great debate”.  Quick timeline: “Introduced…on October 23, the Act swept through Congress remarkably quickly and with little dissent….The bill passed in the House the next day and in the Senate…on October 25. President Bush signed the bill into law on October 26.”  Kind of casts a pall on his other points, no?)

The National Review editorialized that Congress

temporarily acknowledged the executive branch’s authority to monitor international communications for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence….This should not have been controversial. The single most important task of any president is to protect the United States from external threats….That task has never been more vital than it is today, when transnational terror networks, seeking access to weapons of enormous power, vow to attack us after killing nearly 3,000 Americans. Yet our defense is hindered by an improvident and outdated legislative scheme, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Ed Morrissey in The Weekly Standard wrote “It’s essential that the president have the requisite tools to conduct surveillance on terrorists plotting to harm Americans and American interests.”  I found no commentary at all at The American Enterprise Institute.

Among right wing bloggers Dean Barnett lauded the “much-needed FISA reforms”, Sister Toldjah wrote “Well, while Democrats often won’t vote in favor of a bill in spite of the fact that it would help protect us from terrorism, they will vote for it for two reasons: 1) politics and 2) they wanna go on their summer recess” and Jules Crittenden chimed in with “Losers fail to stop winners in vote vs. enemy, that’s a loss therefore a win, right? Senate backs White House on eavesdropping vs. foreign terror suspects” (embarrassingly awkward syntax in original).  Reaction across the board consisted of procedural accounts, political scorekeeping, notes of approval or complete silence.

No conservatives have the courage to say the changes wrapped a tiny loophole change (foreign-to-foreign communications that pass through American infrastructure) up with enormous and unconstitutional executive power grabs.  Some argue FISA itself is the problem, conveniently ignoring the alternative enforcement mechanism – Congressional oversight – can be neglected by the legislature or contemptuously ignored by the executive.  (If nothing else Bush has demonstrated the value of bureaucracy: It forces process and documentation.)  The current crisis can be laid at the feet of both the left and the right – I’ll get to liberals next week – but conservatives bear a larger share of the blame.  Their uniform blind obedience has been the primary enabler of tyranny’s lengthening shadow.