Archive for October 10, 2008

It’s a Good Day

Seriously, how many gaudy brooches/lapel pins does this woman have? But I digress. In press coverage, court decisions, and legislative statements, Sarah Palin is losing ground on “troopergate.” It’s probably about as damning in fact as the Ayers incident, but still. And, Connecticut’s Supreme Court held that, on equal protection grounds, the state could not deny marriage to gay couples. More on that later. UPDATE: Alaska report slams Palin with a 263-page censure: she abused her power, but didn’t break the law (full report).

Inverting the Elitism Narrative

For the past twenty years, Republicans have built their electoral successes, at least partially, on an appeal to America’s (perceived) simple roots, and reaped the benefits of a rising tide of anti-intellectualism, masked as anti-elitism. At least in domestic matters, small-scale, inept government was precisely the point. East-coast liberals don’t share your values, the argument goes, and their ideas are predicated on an idea that they somehow know better than you, just because they… well… studied government, and know better than you. Under the Bush administration, the cultural manifestation of anti-intellectualism has proved disastrous, steamrolling the sciences and quashing constructive criticisms of financial and military policy. The good news, though, is that the tide is starting to turn. The “elitism” narrative is starting to work against the Republicans, on at least two fronts.

America’s current financial crisis has focused all attention on money: its use, abuse, and affect on government. Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that this election cycle has seen the American “anti-elitist” meme return to its roots in a distrust of the wealthy and financially privileged, abandoning its more recent iteration (a distrust of earned knowledge). The rebirth of the financial branch of anti-elitist “thought” is bad news for John McCain, who earlier this season faced a bad week of news cycles when he couldn’t remember how many houses he owned, and good news for Barack Obama, whose campaign messages subtly invoke McCain’s disconnect from financial reality (“out of touch”):

Perhaps making fun of McCain for having eight houses is a little unfair. But America’s favorite maverick isn’t exactly doing a lot to dig himself out of the “elitist” hole, making passing reference to a “psychological” recession and employing advisers who refer to impoverished Americans as “whiners.” This line of attack is only going to broaden… especially as middle-America realizes that the avatar of the common man, “hockey mom” Sarah Palin, is not exactly middle class (the jeweled flag pin should’ve been a tip-off).

Perhaps more notably, Sarah Palin’s main contribution to the McCain campaign – a fervent, increasingly angry, xenophobic brand of theocratic conservatism – isn’t so much anti-elitist as it is reverse-elitist. Her message isn’t that city folk unjustly hate rural folk. It’s that rural folk should justly hate city folk (her apologists concur in this judgment). This may be what McCain wants. After all, this “yell at everything” approach fits with his temper, famously explosive in defeat. But it’s not what America wants, as Palin’s plummeting favorability ratings prove. John McCain & Sarah Palin would rather start a riot than lose an election; luckily the American people dissent (Update: recognizing this, John McCain has since backtracked from his running mate’s vitriol).

Whipping up the base worked in 2000 and 2004, but still, no candidate can win without the moderate vote. Unapologetic reverse-elitism, just like unapologetic elitism, is a bad campaign strategy, and it’s a bad way to govern. I’m left terrified of what these quasi-racist campaign rallies mean for any theoretical McCain/Palin or Palin 2012 administration. Whatever it means, it’s not good.

Fortunately, of course, we probably won’t ever find out.

Guilt by Association (Return Fire)

Sarah Palin, the book-banning creationist, has her own shady connections, including a millenialist pastor whose claim to fame is tormenting and expelling a woman from an African village because he believed her to be a witch, and secessionist Civil War revisionists, the latter of whom have had serious affects on her policymaking as governor.

America Needs, and Deserves, a Frank Discussion on National Security

Under current law, American military authority emerges from a fusion of executive and legislative action, with provision for limited emergency powers. The President can respond to national emergencies, but continued action under the aegis of the presidential “commander in chief” powers, from the waging of war to the prevention thereof, requires congressional authorization, especially when war provisions impact the homeland. ((Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952).)) The basic model for executive discretion, that drastic action requires legislative approval, is as old as ancient representative “democracy”: ancient Rome’s Republican “dictators” took their terrible power only with legislative authorization, and only temporarily.

While “9/11 changed everything,” it did not change this basic fact of American democracy. All of President George W. Bush’s actions in the War on Terror have taken place against a background of vague congressional approval, contained in a short statute known as the Authorization of Military Force (AUMF).  The AUMF, passed exactly one week after September 11th, professed to activate any presidential war powers “necessary and appropriate” to the goal of securing American safety. Perhaps purposefully, that’s as specific as the statute gets:

Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, enacted and signed into law September 18, 2001:

(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements-

(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.

(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

While perhaps deliberate, the AUMF’s vagueness poses a serious interpretive problem. The AUMF grants no specific authority. Thus, in attempting to judge the constitutionality of some of President Bush’s more egregious acts in the war on terror, justified either prior to implementation or, pursuant to the second Bush Doctrine, ((Namely: “it’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.”)) after discovery, the federal judiciary is left to interpret, with little to no constitutional guidance, exactly what is “necessary and appropriate” in waging America’s new war. While surely some wartime detention is contemplated by any exercise of military force, does the AUMF allow for perpetual detention? ((Upheld with limitations – compare Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004) with Boumediene v. Bush, 551 U.S. ___ (2008). Improper for the creation of pseudo-war crimes tribunals. See Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006).)) How about warrantless wiretapping? ((Constitutionally dubious, because FISA “occupies the field” of executive wiretapping in pursuit of national security goals, and requires specific statutory exemption, which the AUMF most certainly is not! The question is partially mooted by Congressional deliberations on a new FISA bill.))

While the federal judiciary is adequate to the task of crafting responsible rules for waging the war on terror, it shouldn’t have to. Especially because there is no foreseeable end to the War on Terror (as we’ve heard a thousand times), we citizens need to “settle in” for the long haul by crafting, through our representatives, a specific, popular, bipartisan understanding of what the War on Terror will require, and what our President can do, and cannot do, to protect us. The task must begin with a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force, to replace our outdated general authorization by charting specifically the limits of executive discretion in known and controversial areas, while leaving a limited reservoir of power for as of yet undreamt war powers.

Crafting a new, universal understanding of American democracy at war will require frank discussion in the public sphere, and a great deal of cooperation between all three branches of government, both to ensure that Congress’ vision does not intrude on the President’s (reasonable) expectations of what his war powers include, and to protect our constitutional liberties. Government-wide consensus in this field is long overdue: it’s no surprise that President Bush’s shockingly divisive conduct squandered any goodwill between the branches long ago. But a new administration will pave the way for (hopefully) a new governmental collegiality, more conducive to the creation of a viable war powers framework.

A new congressional mandate for the War on Terror ought to be Priority Number One for the next American President. It’s time to move past jingoism and realize that, if we’re really going to be in this War for the forseeable future, we can’t litigate each and every presidential action, and the President shouldn’t dodge public concensus or take action to elicit the same. In short, ti’s time to move past the Bush years.