Why Adapt When You Can Recontextualize?

Q: How much of an unrepentant narcissist do you have to be to squander the power of one of the mightiest elected offices in the world on the unrelentingly incompetent pursuit of a lofty and admirable but hardly unreachable goal, and then declare yourself a "dissident" when the wages of your blundering come home to roost, as though the unquestionably-universally-yearned-for-and-fought-for idea onto which you latched to give flight to your ambition was some sort of unpopular, counter-intuitive seed that you have been furtively trying to plant in the hard, unyielding soil that is potted in the hearts of men?

A: Duh. We know where to place blame when our ideas don't come to fruition, right? It's the system's fault, or the press's fault, or the opposition party's fault, or just plain rotten luck. We certainly wouldn't ever dream of placing that blame in our own fumbling hands. The time for examining our own efforts and assessing the validity of our methods may one day come, but for heaven's sake not now while we're busy strutting around in an unabashed dilettantic fugue. History Will Vindicate Us. Print it on the currency. Brick by brick our good intentions will pave us a mighty road down which we shall gaily skip, eyes aglow in anticipation of the just desserts that await us at the end.

Candid And Unfettered Advice

I often hear, in reference to the refusal of the White House to allow information about its advisors and its decision-making process to come to light, that "for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice," to quote White House Counsel Fred Fielding, and that the prospect of having to testify under oath about that advice could have a chilling effect and make such advisors "reluctant to communicate openly and honestly." This rationale has been repeated so many times that reporters seem to gloss right over it on auto-pilot, like it's just some boilerplate they have to include next to station identification and the weather.

What kind of advice is the president getting that the American people need to remain ignorant of it? If there are people advising the president who are afraid of having their ideas attributed to them, I've got news for you, those people should not be influencing policy. Are there any secret signatures on the Declaration of Independence? Are there any articles of the Constitution whose validity is dependent on their authorship? Why should we, as Americans, be so respectful of the desire for privacy of those who are guiding our ship of state? It's our country, "We the people" isn't just a cute phrase, it's a guiding principle, that this representative democracy, this republic, derives its power from the people, through the people, and for the people.

I know I'm getting carried away here, but this is pretty outrageous stuff. Should we allow ourselves to be ruled by those who lack the courage of their convictions? Given that this nation was created and birthed by men and women who were willing to die, to be tortured, to give up all they had in the world for the ideas of freedom and justice for all, does it not follow that the maintenance and furtherance of the grand ideals that underpin the United States of America should be undertaken by people of similar strength of character? That the governance of this nation should be an enterprise to which one would be proud to have one's name attached?

I recognize that a good decision-maker, especially one responsible for so much, needs to have access to all available options, and sometimes must make difficult and perhaps Machiavellian choices about things. And if we're talking about information that must be kept secret to ensure the security of the country, then telling it on the mountain is not appropriate. But when we're talking about internal politics, about the basic nuts and bolts administration of national policy, such a deference to secrecy is not right, and it's certainly not our way of doing things. We the people believe in open and honest government, and those qualities are not fueled by shadows, smoke, and mirrors. If the Congress is asking the president a question, then the people represented by the Congress (that's us! you and me!) are asking the president a question, and if he is indeed upholding the ideals that he most solemnly swore to uphold, then he cannot but answer truthfully. That is a basic fact of our system of government. To do any less is un-American, and must be dealt with harshly and with all available haste.

Hear Ye, Democrats! Here There Be Dragons!

I'm going to start off today with some excerpts of transcripts, one from Attorney General Gonzales' Senate testimony, and one from Larry King's interview with the Vice President, pointed out to me by Dan Froomkin, a reporter for the Washington Post, and that is going to lead us into a Big Question. Here goes, Larry King first:

"Q- In that regard, The New York Times -- which, as you said, is not your favorite -- reports it was you who dispatched Gonzales and Andy Card to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital in 2004 to push Ashcroft to certify the President's intelligence-gathering program. Was it you?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't recall -- first of all, I haven't seen the story. And I don't recall that I gave instructions to that effect.

Q- That would be something you would recall.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I would think so. But certainly I was involved because I was a big advocate of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, and had been responsible and working with General Hayden and George Tenet to get it to the President for approval. By the time this occurred, it had already been approved about 12 times by the Department of Justice. There was nothing new about it.

Q- So you didn't send them to get permission.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't recall that I was the one who sent them to the hospital."


So there's that, and then there's this exchange between Gonzales and Sen. Schumer(D-NY):


"SEN. SCHUMER: Who sent you to the hospital?

ATTY. GEN. GONZALES: Senator, what I can say is we'd had a very important meeting at the White House over one of the most --

SEN. SCHUMER: I didn't ask that. I didn't ask for -- would you discuss the meeting --

ATTY. GEN. GONZALES: I'm answering your question, Senator --

SEN. SCHUMER: Who sent you?

ATTY. GEN. GONZALES: If I could.

SEN. SCHUMER: Did anyone tell you to go?

ATTY. GEN. GONZALES: It was one of the most important programs for the United States. It was important -- it had been authorized by the president. I'll just say that the chief of staff of the president of the United States and the counsel of the president of the United States went to the hospital on behalf of the president of the United States.

SEN. SCHUMER: Did the president ask you to go?

ATTY. GEN. GONZALES: We were there on behalf of the president of the United States.

SEN. SCHUMER: I didn't ask you that.

ATTY. GEN. GONZALES: I can't --

SEN. SCHUMER: Did the president ask you to go?

ATTY. GEN. GONZALES: Senator, we were there on behalf of the president of the United States.

SEN. SCHUMER: Why can't you answer that question?

ATTY. GEN. GONZALES: That's the answer that I can give you, Senator."

So. There you have it. The question of who dispatched Gonzales and Andy Card to harass John Ashcroft in his hospital bed is so centrally important to the executive branch that no one must know who gave the order. Seem strange? Sure it does, but here's the trouble: that question is tantalizing, it hints of shadowy and momentous dealings that anyone who cares about the health of the nation must investigate. Because otherwise, why would they be so taciturn?

It is at this point that the Democratic congresspersons must tread very, very carefully. They must remember that, despite all the chatter declaring his obsolescence after the last election, Karl Rove got where he is by being very clever, and losing an election does not rob one of one's cleverness. It is entirely possible that there is no greater mystery to this hospital visit question than that the president and his veep told Card and Gonzales to go harass Ashcroft to try to get around Comey's objection to their illegal surveillance program. That could be the entire story. If so, the reticence of the administration on this front is not just contrariness, but an attempt to draw the opposition party into making a mountain out of a molehill and thus not only wasting time, money, and energy that could be spent on more fruitful pursuits, but looking awfully stupid in the process, just in time for the next presidential election. Pretty Rovian, no? The Democrats pull back the curtain with great fanfare and hoopla and... there's nothing there. They're Austin Powers trying to pull the wig off of an enemy operative only to find an old lady.

The question of whether the current administration is up to no good is pretty well settled, for anyone who pays attention to politics. But there are those who will forget or ignore the fact that they are, unless a solid conviction or at least an unequivocal exposure of wrongdoing is presented before the nation. Certainly the revelations of secret prisons, torture, spying, incompetence, and the series of deceptions that led us into Iraq are sufficient for most people, but there are still holdouts whose robust capacity for rationalization and suppression of cognitive dissonance prevents them from accepting that as evidence of wrongdoing. For those people, there must be a smoking gun, with a signed and notarized admission of guilt taped to the side, because let's face it, there's a lot of people who have very publicly and clearly tied their personal and professional reputations to this Bush character, for reasons multifarious. There are also those who will succumb to the circular logic of "if they didn't get punished, they must not have done anything too terribly wrong." For them, someone must be frog-marched before they'll catch on. So the importance of further investigation and hoopla is also clear.

What a tight spot! Those who seek to hold the current administration to account must go in with all guns blazing, knowing that to do so is probably a trap, and could lead to the exact opposite of the desired outcome. If this scenario sounds familiar, it is for good reason. Messrs Bush and Rove found themselves on just the opposite side of this dilemma several years ago over a little issue called "Iraqi weapons of mass destruction." Yes, the irony is thick, but bear with me. Just as the Iraq invasion led to the revelation that its primary stated rationale was a load of hooey and created even more terrorists, so the vigorous investigation of the White House's actions could lead to the revelation that none of the many unethical actions were technically and actionably illegal, and it could lead to the creation of more Bush Republicans.

It is at this point that we, instead of despairing at this pickle, must remember that the invasion of Iraq was most incompetently managed. Therefore the importance of careful and sober management of the many investigations of the White House is paramount. Sure, it sounds pretty unlikely, given everything we know about politicians, but it also presents a good litmus test to the average citizen: if the Democrats want to prove themselves capable of digging the country out of the many difficult situations the Bush folks have gotten us into, they must succeed at this task first. It has shades of classical mythology to it, no? He who would ascend to the throne must accomplish these seemingly hopeless tasks first, with only his wits and resourcefulness to aid him? I am excited, I think this could be quite a magnificent contest, with Leahy and Specter acting like real congressmen, and the huge fields of presidential candidates on both sides chattering away about the whole thing. I obviously have a desired outcome, but that doesn't change my appreciation for a good fight.