Breaking The Clinch: A 12-Step Program for Distancing Ourselves

The Democrats in Congress have adopted a basic defensive strategy from boxing: The Clinch. By repeatedly backing down from confrontations over Iraq and other issues, they hope to avoid being attacked for betraying the troops and undermining U.S. security by cutting the Pentagon's funding for the war.

Predictably, Democrats seem no more capable of responding to these attacks than they did during the months before the 2004 election. Instead, they've sought a "bipartisan" alliance with Republican moderates that would impose loose but veto-proof limitations on the U.S. commitment to Iraq.

The strategy has failed dismally. The Democrats don't appreciate the depth and intensity of public rage and hostility towards the war. In boxing, the "clinch" strategy requires one opponent to embrace the other to avoid hard punches. In politics, it becomes difficult to distinguish one party from the other, so the Democrats are now identified all too closely with an unpopular war. Like the Republicans, they fret endlessly but seem incapable of resolute action.

Yet another poll has brought home this point:

Fifty-eight percent, a new high, said they want to decrease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. And most of those who advocated a troop reduction said they want the drawdown to begin either right away or by the end of the year. A majority, 55 percent, supported legislation that would set a deadline of next spring for the withdrawal of American combat forces. That figure is unchanged from July. Only about a third believed the United States is making significant progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq... [emphasis added.]

In the face of such hostility, Democrats should be gaining major ground. They're not:

Going forward, the public trusts Democrats over Republicans to handle Iraq by an 11-point margin, but two in 10 now trust "neither" party on the issue. In previous polls, congressional Democrats had wider advantages over President Bush on Iraq, with that gap as high as 27 points in January.

These numbers explain why even "antiwar" Democrats returning to the Pacific Northwest for "town halls" have been met by large, vocal and openly hostile crowds. The victims include antiwar Senator Ron Wyden and Representatives Darlene Hooley of Oregon and Brian Baird of Washington State (who opposed the war but inexplicably voted to support the surge).

A more vigorous party, with a real sense of direction and assertive leadership, would figure out that a new strategy is long overdue. Otherwise the hapless Democrats will stagger through another series of lost electoral opportunities.

So here's a modest suggestion: the focus now should be on distancing ourselves and the country, in the strongest possible terms, from the barbarians who've misruled the country for the last six and a half years. The strategy should begin immediately with the following six steps, followed by six more after the 2008 election:

1. Pass needed legislation, on subjects as diverse as Iraq and health care, even (or especially) if a veto is inevitable. Force the veto, force an override vote, and show exactly who is obstructing solutions to serious national problems.
2. Launch vigorous congressional investigations—at last!—of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the use of torture and the many other instances of overreaching by a lawless administration.
3. Refuse to approve Bush nominations for all regulatory, judicial and executive vacancies—from the Supreme Court to Deputy Undersecretary of State for Eastern Caribbean Affairs. Bipartisanship has meaning to Republicans in D.C. only when they're in the minority.
   
4. Fiercely denounce the Bush/Cheney project in Iraq in every available international forum from the U.N. to NATO and beyond. While the U.S. traditionally has just "one foreign policy at a time," the present crisis demands otherwise.
   
5. Declare that ample legal grounds exist to impeach and remove the Bush/Cheney cabal from office based on their war crimes—especially crimes against peace, waging an aggressive war, and crimes against humanity. Not to mention their assault on the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
   
6. Then impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney. Force a vote in the House and a trial in the Senate, even if 1/3 or more of the Senators vote for acquittal. This isn't a distraction, as Nancy Pelosi seems to believe, nor is it frivolous. (After the Clinton farce, can any Republican claim with a straight face that an impeachment of Bush/Cheney is a total waste of time?)
   

Maybe the Democrats will finally get their act together, retain Congress and win the White House in 2008. Then what? In terms of repairing some of the damage to its international stature, the U.S. will urgently need to distance itself from the criminal behavior of the Bush/Cheney year—for moral reasons, ultimately, but also to rebuild lost goodwill around the world and become a member in good standing of international organizations. For example, a new administration and Congress could:

1. Initiate domestic war crimes prosecutions against the perpetrators, assuming there are no presidential pardons. [1] (As discussed elsewhere, international war crimes prosecutions are almost inconceivable because the U.S. would never consent, and it wouldn't extradite.)
2. Appoint a special prosecutor to convene a grand jury and prosecute those in the government who legitimized and authorized torture and other war crimes. (A special prosecutor is necessary because some Dems were undoubtedly involved.)
   
3. Aggressive diplomacy to show people around the world that Americans renounce the actions of the part administration.
4. Organize an international conference of religious leaders to open and expand a dialog in order to prevent the "clash of civilizations" that causes neocons to salivate.
5. Propose a summit conference of secular leaders for the same purpose.
6. Expand cultural exchanges to improve communications with the rest of the world and demonstrate that the U.S. can play a positive role in international affairs. Increase foreign aid to bring the U.S. closer to the mainstream in terms of percentage of GPA devoted to that purpose.
   

No doubt the list could go on, but it's a start. In a time of national crisis, it's absolutely vital to have a genuine opposition party that is willing to distance itself and (more importantly) the country from the outrages of the current administration.

NOTES

[1] Impeachment and conviction would only remove Bush/Cheney from office. To hold them fully accountable, a criminal prosecution is necessary.

PHOTO: Two boxers in a clinch (Wikimedia Commons).

UPDATE (September 10th):

The latest New York Times poll has more bad news for Democrats:

The poll found that both Congress, whose approval rating now stands at its lowest level since Democrats took control from the Republicans last year, and Mr. Bush enter the debate with little public confidence in their ability to deal with Iraq. Only 5 percent of Americans — a strikingly low number for a sitting president’s handling of such a dominant issue — said they most trusted the Bush administration to resolve the war, the poll found. Asked to choose among the administration, Congress and military commanders, 21 percent said they would most trust Congress and 68 percent expressed most trust in military commanders.

"Commanders" like General David Petraeus—the same "military professional" who testified today that the surge is working and the U.S. presence in Iraq should continue indefinitely?

Apparently there's a misconception on this point: politically speaking, generals are marionettes of the White House, and they're purged on the spot if they're not. Ask generals like Eric Shinseki, Antonio Taguba and George W. Casey what happens if you deviate from the party line. It's no coincidence that Petraeus exactly parrots the White House position (and at the same time praises his own performance).

The confidence in Pentagon "professionals" also elides the larger issue: the military is an instrument of policy whose efforts always need to be placed in the context of policy. As in Vietnam (where the U.S. "won all the battles"), military successes in Iraq lack long-term value if they don't further political objectives.

The policy is what finally matters, not the competence or professionalism of the soldiers, sailors and Marines who carry it out.

The presidential recall

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
—Declaration of Independence (1776)

The Founders had every historical reason to be extreme skeptics about government, especially in the form of the colonial administration of the British colonies in North America. As a counterweight to the tendency of government towards excessive concentrations of power, their Constitution adopted a system of complex checks and balances based on the Enlightenment theories of Locke and Montesquieu.

The U.S. political system is founded on the premise that government is a necessary evil. Contrary to popular opinion, it has five branches, not just three: the executive, congress, judiciary, fifty states and the people. To reduce the risk of tyranny, these branches are placed in constant competition with each other—the capitalist marketplace extended into politics.

After 220 years of stresses and crises, this system has revealed its strengths and weaknesses. While the strengths don't require elaboration at the moment, the weaknesses can be summarized easily enough: it's damned hard to get anything done, at least most of the time. There have been rare times when a single party has acquired enough control of the government to advance its program vigorously: during the New Deal and the early years of the Johnson administration, for example. For much of the last half century, the White House and at least one house of Congress have been under the control of different parties. With few exceptions, those periods of divided government have been notable only for their inaction on pressing national issues.

The Republicans, for the first time in a half century, exercised monolithic control over the entire federal government for two congressional terms starting in 2002. They pursued a catastrophic military adventure in Iraq and a Reaganesque program of tax cuts for the wealthiest 10%, but otherwise accomplished nothing of substance. The current divided government seems incapable of action on critical issues ranging from health care to the war in Iraq.

After the last congressional election barely delivered Congress to the Democrats, the deeply unpopular Bush/Cheney regime has had no incentive to be responsive to anyone. Whether the issue is the war or the future of Alberto Gonzales, Bush has adopted a confrontational in-your-face strategy that scorns compromise. Secure in the knowledge that the Democratic leadership remains uninterested in impeachment, there's no political cost to Bush for his obstinacy (1). With the election more than a year away, panic hasn't yet swept the ranks of Republicans who'll have to run for reelection on the Bush/Cheney record.

So here's the dilemma: the U.S. has an incompetent lame-duck administration that seems blithely determined to tread water for the next year and a half, yet we have no equivalent to the parliamentary "no confidence" motion that might force early elections and the removal of Bush/Cheney. This creates an untenable situation: before the next administration assumes office, another 1,700 or more U.S. troops could be killed in Iraq, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians could die and millions of Americans could lose their health insurance (2). Bush is clearly determined to prolong the war until his term ends so he and his party can blame the "loss" of Iraq on the next administration.

Even though impeachable offenses have been committed, the Democrats have already proven themselves to be one of the most ineffectual "majorities" in the modern history of Congress.

Could there be a constitutional remedy that might reduce the risk of similar situations developing in the future? Writing in WaPo, Robert Dallek suggests a national recall based on the California model that successfully ended Gray Davis' governorship in 2003:

It's enough to make people think about a constitutional amendment for removing a president other than by impeachment or because of incapacity, as is now provided for under the 25th Amendment.

Such an amendment would need to set a high bar for removal and include a process that would be the greatest possible expression of the popular will. This could best be achieved through a recall procedure beginning in the House and the Senate, where a 60 percent vote would be required in both chambers to initiate a national referendum that would be open to all citizens eligible to vote in state elections. The ballot would simply ask voters to say yes or no to removing the president and vice president from office immediately. Should a majority vote to recall both incumbents, the speaker of the House would succeed to the presidency and, under the provisions of the 25th Amendment, would choose a vice president, who would need to be confirmed by majorities in the House and the Senate.

Even if such an amendment were already in place, of course, an effort to recall Bush/Cheney would likely fail. Neither the House nor the Senate could generate the 60% supermajority needed to initiate the process. Without Republican defections, it's doubtful whether the Democrats could even muster a majority in the current Senate. (The archaic and antidemocratic filibuster rule already imposes a tacit supermajority requirement on nearly every measure that comes before the full Senate.)

The recall model, it seems, would set the bar too high to remedy something like the current situation. It would require just seven votes less than a successful impeachment trial in the Senate. A filibuster could indefinitely prevent a vote on recall.

The better solution, though it's unlikely ever to get any serious consideration here, is the parliamentary "no confidence" vote followed, if necessary, by an election. If such a constitutional amendment were adopted, a simple majority in each house of Congress could force a form of "recall" election. Would that device set the bar too low and create a series of unstable administrations, each subject to removal at the whim of Congress? Or would it create a more responsive government and avoid the lame-duck impasses that we now have to endure?

The British experience, after ten years of Tony Blair's Labour government, lends little support to the fear of instability. In a two-party system like our own, an administration would survive "no confidence" votes as long as strict party discipline remains intact. The administration's party, absent defections, would always prevail.

George Bush would probably survive a "no confidence" vote in the current Senate. Would the threat of such a vote compel him to be more compromising? For a man who apparently receives his political instructions directly from his United Methodist God (3), that seems unlikely. Still, a couple Republican defections might change the political equation dramatically.

Checks and balances, from the presidential veto to the "advise and consent" role of the Senate, tend to make it more difficult to accomplish anything. A "no confidence" amendment, by contrast, could put pressure on an administration to perform and make the federal government more responsive—and therefore more democratic. A "democracy" isn't just a system of elections: in its deepest sense, it demands a government that constantly—and not just every two years—reflects the will of the people and responds to their needs.

The "no confidence" mechanism may never develop roots on this side of the Atlantic, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

NOTES

(1) As the old bumper sticker said, back in the days of AT&T's telecommunications monopoly: "We don't care. We don't have to." This is beyond cynicism, of course. But the strategy seems to be working: Congress is even more unpopular than Bush/Cheney, notwithstanding the fact that the obstructionist R's have prevented the D "majority" from taking action on Iraq or anything else. The administration is guessing that a jaded general public isn't paying serious attention to what's going on: their disgust will extend equally to both parties. Maybe Turd Blossom Rove hasn't lost his touch after all.

(2) The certainty of continuing high casualties in Iraq creates a moral imperative for impeachment that the Democrats seem unwilling to acknowledge, even if they lack the 2/3 majority needed to convict. Would Bush continue to stonewall, even he'd prevail in the Senate? Most likely he would, but there's really no choice (notwithstanding Nancy Pelosi's premature opposition to impeachment last year). Sadly, the Democrats don't presently have the political will or courage to even pass a censure motion. Maybe they need more encouragement (or demands) from the public, which now seems to consider Congress to be even more incompetent than Bush.

(3) In 2004, for example, Bush reportedly said: "I trust God speaks through me. Without that I couldn't do my job." The White House has since denied that story, and similar stories, about Bush's direct communication with the divine.

PAINTING: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson reviewing a draft of the Declaration of Independence. Painting by J.L.G. Ferris (Wikipedia Commons).