OPEN UNIVERSITY JANUARY 17, 2007
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by Sanford Levinson
I quote below the response of Mark Levin, blogging at the National Review site, to the announcement by the Bush administration that it will, after all, submit requests for surveillance of telephone conversations to the FISA Court after arguing, since December 2005, both that the president has inherent authority to order such surveillance and, even more to the point, that the 1978 surveillance apparatus leaves us in peril in the "global war on terror":
Is there no principle subject to negotiation? Is there no course subject to reversal? For the Bush administration to argue for years that this program, as operated, was critical to our national security and fell within the president's Constitutional authority, to then turnaround and surrender presidential authority this way is disgraceful. The administration is repudiating all the arguments it has made in testimony, legal briefs, and public statements. This goes to the heart of the White House's credibility. How can it cast away such a fundamental position of principle and law like this?
I don't share Mr. Levin's politics, but I do think that he raises an important point about whether this administration can meet the most minimal test of what might be termed "integrity." Some of us are old enough to remember the devastating "credibility gap" during the Vietnam war. Perhaps we no longer expect presidents (of either party?) to be reasonably honest, but, with regard to national security, isn't there something especially scandalous about arguing that A is "required" to defend basic national security and then saying, like Emily Litella (or was it Roseanne Roseannadanna?), "Never Mind." Bob Dole asked in 1996 "where is the outrage?" (though I forget right now what he thought we should be outraged about). Shouldn't there be ever deepening outrage at an administration that cannot be trusted to tell us the truth (where "truth" need mean nothing more than "one's genuine belief about the state of the world") about the most fundamental issues of our society? And, I will ask rhetorically, isn't it a scandal that the Constitution provides us no way of evicting someone so completely untrustworthy from the White House? Who even within the Republican Party can possibly be glad to have Bush as the "Great Decider" for another 735 days?
7 comments
I wish there was a way to impeach both of these guys. They have truly put us in harms way.
- marychs1942
January 18, 2007 at 11:45am
Like most incompetents, the Bushies have to lie to cover the increasing consequences of their incompetent actions. Lie, cover up, hide, co-opt, attack, threaten, bully - these are the tools of mediocracy maintaining power. The over-riding characteristic of authoritarians is their mediocrity, both intrinsic, and deliberately cultivated as "normality". Have we had a prior President as aggressively ignorant as this one?
- davidmcamp
January 18, 2007 at 12:41pm
Leaving Bush just where he is until the next election serves the Democrats quite well. The man seems pathologically incapable of admitting that he has made a mistake and, glory be, his policy decisions are consistent with his verbal denials. He just keeps digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole and dragging his party into it with him. Cheney is already at the bottom of the hole, saying, "Come on, there's plenty of room down here, and we can always dig some more." Being stuck with Bush for two more years also may teach the electorate (and the press?) something about ourselves. We can hope that for at least a few years, we will remember the "lessons of Iraq" not just as a demoralizing failure of U.S. foreign policy, but as a cautionary tale of what we can and cannot do in this big, complicated world, or at least the way we can and cannot go about trying to do it. Maybe for a little while at least - or maybe after a little while - we will remember the difference between humility and humiliation, and will conduct ourselves accordingly. But I'm not betting on any such edification coming from all this. We've all been here before, right? So let's just have the Democrats take over, and see how they in turn end up ruining themselves.
- tskesq
January 18, 2007 at 1:57pm
I think it was Emily Litella who would do a rant on the SNL news spoof and then be advised that she was misunderstanding. Roseanne used to say, "It just goes to show ya--there's always somethin'."
- wrrriter
January 18, 2007 at 4:24pm
You don't impeach lousy presidents. Despite all the purple prose, Bush isn't corrupt. The true outrage is that the GOP promoted an empty suit like him. He's never had an original thought in his life, his "deciderings" coming from the party hacks surrounding him. They are the true blackguards in this tragic farce.
- jm_rice
January 18, 2007 at 5:04pm
Simply find a way to put him under oath, and then, while he is under oath, ask him something, anything.
- Jan Freed
January 20, 2007 at 5:10pm
Both characters created by the late, lamented Gilda Radner.
- JSlammer
January 21, 2007 at 12:15pm