N O R T H C O A S T T IM E S E A G L E , JABRUARY 2006
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GEORGE BUSH’S ANNUS HORRIBILIS
THE PRESIDENT IS BADLY WOUNDED BUT THAT MIGHT NOT BE GOOD FOR ANYONE IN 2006
BY ANDREW GUMBEL
2005 was the year the Bush administration curled up and
laid down to die. The President told us a little over a year ago that
he regarded his reelection as political capital he was now free to
spend, but in retrospect it seems he was handed no more than
loose change, or — to extend the metaphor in a slightly different
direction — a pile of fool’s gold.
His ambition to dismantle Social Security as we know it
— going nowhere. His continuing itch to extend tax cuts for the
wealthy — denied by the realities of out-of-control deficit spend
ing. His Iraq policy — ever more floundering and tragic, and now,
thanks to Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania and the
investigations of Patrick Fitzgerald, condemned to incoherence
in the public relations arena, too.
•
His war on terror — exposed as both incompetent and
morally bankrupt in the wake of scandals concerning torture and
the unauthorized wiretapping of American citizens. His general
credibility in the domestic arena — shot to pieces by the scandal
ously lackadaisical response to Hurricane Katrina, and by the
numerous corruption scandals now lapping at the heels of the
entire Republican establishment.
It’s hard to know, in fact, what the administration still
hopes to achieve. The President talks a lot about staying the
course, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of course left
to stay. It’s still possible the new year could see major staffing
changes in the White House, or the announcement of a major
new series of initiatives — on developing alternative energy
sources, perhaps, something pundits on both left and right have
been suggesting as a feasible way to revive his flagging fortunes.
But the doggedness that has characterized this administration
as it lurches from one disaster to the next suggests otherwise.
The Bushies don't like admitting they are wrong about anything,
and longevity in public office in this White House is measured by
loyalty, not competence.
The truly frightening prospect, in fact, is that this crew
still has three years left in office, and there isn’t a thing any of us
can do to dislodge them. We’re condemned, in other words, to
live with the stench of rotting political flesh for the foreseeable
future. Being a Brit, I’m often asked if I think, in a parliamentary
system, it would be easier to kick the Bushies out now that they
have clearly lost the public trust. To which my answer is: not
necessarily.
It’s true that, in the mother of parliaments in Westminster,
it only takes a straight up-and-down vote by the members of the
majority party to unseat a Prime Minister, which is what happened
to Margaret Thatcher in 1990. But does anyone think that the
Republicans who control Congress would really dare to rebel
against their own anointed leader, when so much of their own,
and the country's, credibility is at stake in Iraq and elsewhere?
Tony Blair, after all, has clung on, even though the Iraq War has
been far more unpopular in Britain, and his own Labor Party feels
distinctly ambivalent about him.
The U.S. Congress is also a far more conservative and
stultified body than its foreign counterparts. Incumbents are so
well protected in the U.S. system — by the cold logic of campaign
RANDY MACK BISHOP
fund-raising and the non-competitive nature of almost all electoral
districts — that the winds of democratic change need scarcely
concern them. One sobering reality that Bush opponents need to
confront in the coming year, in fact, is that, whatever misfortunes
the Republicans suffer, the overwhelming probability is that they
will remain in charge of one, if not both houses of Congress after
next November’s mid-terms.
Gerrymandering of district boundaries has reached such
absurd limits that more than 99% of congressional seats have
been safe for the incumbent party in the past few election cycles.
It’s going to take little short of a political earthquake to dislodge
the Republican majority in the House — that, or a cascade of
resignations prompted by the testimony now promised by the
iiber-lobbyist and slush-fund operator Jack Abramoff.
How well insulated exactly are the Republicans? When
they took control of the House in 1994, they won 53.6% of the
two-party vote and gained 52 seats. According to Rob Richie of
the non-partisan Center for Voting & Democracy, which studies
voting patterns and lobbies for alternatives to the winner-takes-all
electoral model, the Democrats will have to do significantly better
in 2006 than the Republicans did in 1994, and even then can
expect only a fraction of the dividends. They will probably have to
win 54% of the two-party vote to stand even a chance of winning
back the House, and even then are likely to squeak home by just
a seat or two. (The Republicans currently have 29 more seats
than the Democrats.)
Part of the reason for this lopsided picture is the number
of open seats — by far the easiest ones to snatch away from the
opposing party because it takes the incumbency advantage out of
WE DON’T NEED A NEW KING GEORGE
BY ANDREW SULLIVAN
A somewhat legal law is a little like a somewhat preg
nant woman. At first blush, it seems like an absurdity. But
President Bush disagrees. In the past five years, quietly but
systematically, he has been arguing that the law doesn’t always
apply to him. How has he done this? By attaching “signing
statements” that spell out his own attitude to bills he signs.
Previous Presidents have sporadically issued signing
statements, but seldom and mainly as boilerplate or spin. Until
the 1980s, there had been just over a dozen in two centuries.
The President's basic legislative weapon, after all, is the veto
given him by the founders. He can use the power as leverage to
affect legislation or kill it. But he cannot legislate himself or inter
pret the law to counter Congress's intent. Signing statements
were therefore relatively rare instances of presidential nuance
or push-back. In eight years, Ronald Reagan used signing state
ments to challenge 71 legislative provisions, and Bill Clinton 105.
In five years, President Bush has already challenged up
to 500 provisions, according to one tally — far, far more than any
predecessor. But more important than the number under Bush
has been the systematic use of the statements and the scope
of their content, asserting a very broad legal loophole for the
Executive. Last December, for example, after a year of debate,
the President signed the McCain amendment into law. In the
wake of Abu Ghraib, the amendment banned all “cruel, inhuman
and degrading" treatment of U.S. military detainees. For months,
the President threatened a veto. Then the Senate passed it 90
to 9. The House chimed in with a veto-proof majority. So Bush
backed down, embraced McCain and signed it. The debate was
over, right? That's how our democracy works, right?
Not according to this President Although the meaning
of the law was crystal clear and the Constitution says Congress
has the exclusive power to “make Rules concerning Captures on
Land and Water," Bush demurred
He issued a signing statement that read, “The executive
branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to
detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional author
ity of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and
as Commander-in-Chief and consistent with the constitutional
limitations of the judicial power."
Translation: If the President believes torture is warranted
to protect the country, he'll violate the law and authorize torture
If the courts try to stop him, he'll ignore them too. This wasn’t
quibbling or spinning. Like the old English kings who insisted that
Parliament could not tell them what to do, Bush all but declared
himself above the law he signed. One professor who specializes
in this constitutional area, Phillip J. Cooper of Portland State
University in Oregon, has described the power grabs as “breath
taking."
And who came up with this innovative use of presidential
signing statements? Drumroll, please. Samuel Alito, Supreme
Court nominee, way back in 1986. In a February 5 memo, he
wrote, “Since the President’s approval is just as important as
that of the House or Senate, it seems to follow that the Presi
dent's understanding of the bill should be just as important as
that of Congress.” That is, of course, a very strange idea —
which is why, until then, signing statements had been sporadic
and rare. Courts have always looked solely to congressional
debates in interpreting laws Congress has passed. In laws
with veto-proof margins, the President's view is utterly irrele
vant. Alito seemed to concede that at the time, recognizing
the “novelty of the procedure and the potential increase of
presidential power."
Alito, of course, didn't foresee the war on terrorism.
But put a war President’s power together with the new use
of signing statements, and Executive clout has been put on
steroids. “If you take this to its logical conclusion, because
during war the Commander-in-Chief has an obligation to
protect us, any statute on the books could be summarily
waived," argued Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican
from South Carolina
As Graham shows, this isn't a Republican-Democrat
issue. It’s a very basic one A President, Democrat or Repub
lican, has every right to act unilaterally at times to defend the
country But a democracy cannot work if the person who is
deputed to execute the laws exempts himself from them when
he feels like it. Forget the imperial presidency. This is more like
a monarchical one America began by rejecting the claims of one
King George It’s disturbing to think we may be quietly installing
a second one
Andrew Sullivan wrote this article for Time magazine
His blog, “The Daily Dish," can be found at time.com
the picture. In 1994, there were 52 open seats, of which the GOP
won 39. To date, the number of seats coming open in 2006 is just
18.
For this reason, a huge amount is riding on lobbyist Jack
Abramoffs anticipated testimony. So much is at stake, in fact, that
if I were in Abramoff’s place I would be getting someone else to
open the mail and making sure someone else drank from the first
cup from every pot of coffee. A huge amount is riding, too, on the
U.S. Supreme Court’s examination of 2003 redistricting in Texas
orchestrated by the now-indicted Tom DeLay. Republicans picked
up four extra seats in 2004 thanks to DeLay’s little piece of politi
cal engineering —made possible simply because the Republicans
edged into the majority in the Texas state legislature — and could
lose them again more or less automatically if the Supreme Court
decides the redistricting maneuver was illegal.
If the Democrats in the Senate have any sense — and,
under Harry Reid, they’ve proved themselves adept at using the
rules of Capitol Hill to their advantage — they will be actively
thinking of ways of at least delaying Samuel Alito’s confirmation
until after the redistricting case is heard in April. Sandra Day
O'Connor may be no shoe-in, but she is far more likely to rule
in favor of sticking to the pre-established practice of redrawing
district boundaries once a decade. The Democrats will no doubt
frame any objections to Alito’s nomination around the issues of
abortion or wiretapping without a warrant, but make no mistake:
Their eyes will be squarely on the electoral prize as well.
What else can the Democrats do to push the beleaguered
Republicans into retreat, if pushing them out of power remains a
long-range proposition? Developing some attractive policy posit
ions, particularly on Iraq, would of course be a plus, but given the
divisions in the party we can hardly count on that. Their best
strategy, in the end, may be to watch the Republicans fall over
each other’s swords and stay well out of the way
If I had to recommend one book to the Democratic lead
ership, it would be Dashiell Hammett's crime classic Red Harvest.
The plot centers around a corrupt small-town political machine
rather than the national government, but the manner in which
Hammett’s Continental Op brings the place to heel nevertheless
holds valuable lessons for contemporary Washington Rather than
inserting himself too intimately into the putrid mess, Hammett's
anti-hero simply figures out who controls which rackets, quietly
sows discord between the rival factions, then sits back and
watches them all shoot each other to pieces. If 2006 provides
even a fraction of that kind of drama, it could be compulsive
political viewing — and pretty darn entertaining.
Andrew Gumbel is the author of Steal This Vote He
wrote this article for Los Angeles CityBeat.
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