Al's Opinions

After 82 days, the California State Legislature has agreed on a budget for the year ending nine months and ten days from now. As usual there is the chorus of blaming someone for the long delay in enacting the budget. The Republican Governor blames the entire legislature. He would like to impose a more serious penalty for having a late budget than simply withholding the legislators' salaries until the budget is approved. The Democrats blame the minority Republicans for refusing to compromise on the issue of providing additional revenue to make up the chronic shortfall between the State's income and expenses. The Republican leader of the State Assembly has it right. The LOS ANGELES TIMES reports that "He said the delay could have been averted if Democrats had accepted earlier on that GOP members would not support any tax increases."

Well, lah dee dah dah! Tax increases should be subjects of negotiation along with reductions in payments for services. If the State is providing more services than the tax revenue will support, it makes sense to consider increasing taxes along with cutting back on services. The Republican minority in the legislature wanted to discuss only the cuts: how much less should the State pay for emergency health care; how much less should the State pay for police and fire protection; how many fewer miles of highways should be repaired; etc., etc., etc.

I can remember a time, not too many years ago, when there were reasonable Republicans. There still are some, but not in the California Legislature. In comparison with his "allies" in the State Legislature, Republican Governor Schwarzenegger seems pretty reasonable. I can think of several other "reasonable" Republicans. Unfortunately, none of them are holding office at present. I suddenly realize that, in comparison with the Republicans in our State Legislature, even George W. Bush seems reasonable. I need a stiff drink!

Labels: Arnold Schwarzenegger, California budget, George Bush, Republican intransigeance

I've been thinking a lot lately about our current President. He's managed to get himself and the country into an awful mess in Iraq. It was clear rather early on that the plan to invade, depose Saddam, install a replacement, secure some lucrative oil rights, and leave had failed and was a big mistake. Instead of trying to correct the mistake, our President persisted in the original plan, which now morphed into an occupation of a country whose government had simply crumbled after Saddam Hussein was removed.

We've had many Presidents who were not particularly intelligent, who were not deep thinkers or intellectuals, and yet managed to do the job of being President without bringing shame or disrepute on themselves or the nation. In fact, the job of being President has evolved in such a way that any person of ordinary intelligence and reasonably good sense can do it. A President is surrounded by advisers. All sorts of ideas are floated in discussions with him. He doesn't have to be a deep thinker or intellectual; others around him will do those things for him. All he has to do is to recognize when he or his administration has made a mistake and try to correct it.

It was a mistake to invade Iraq with such a small army. I do not blame Mr. Bush for making that mistake. He had convincing advice from people he trusted that the plan would work. For a while it seemed that the plan had worked and Mr. Bush made his famous announcement from an aircraft carrier that the mission had been accomplished. But then things started to go wrong. The government services in Iraq ceased to function. Unlike the occupation of Germany and Japan after WW-2, the police stopped policing; the electricity stopped; the sewage disposal system stopped; nothing worked. The Baghdad museum was looted. Oil pipelines were cut. Thieves stole the copper wire from the electrical distribution grid. It was clear that something had gone badly wrong.

At that point the President should have known that he or his administration had made a mistake and that he should start work on correcting the mistake. Instead, he papered over the mistake with a statement in which he stated a new purpose for our presence in Iraq and kept the same policy. Because of his failure or refusal to recognize and try to correct the original mistake, I regard Mr. Bush as an incompetent President. His incompetence has nothing to do with his intellect, his education, his IQ, his personality, his commitment to his religious and ethical beliefs, or even certain other policies that have nothing to do with Iraq. His incompetence is simply his inability or refusal to admit to a mistake and to try to correct it.

Labels: admitting mistakes, failure of Iraq policy, George Bush

Bruce Fein, who was an assistant Attorney General in the Reagan administration and who drew up some of the articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton, has stated his reasons for having impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives against George Bush. Mr. Fein clearly loves the constitution and his reason for impeaching George Bush is that Mr. Bush has established several dangerous precedents. These precedents must be destroyed lest future Presidents use them. The way to destroy the precedents is to hold impeachment hearings based on these precedents. It must be made clear to all future Presidents that these acts were and are illegal under the constitution and that the current President must be impeached for committing them.

Our constitution is more than the mere 25,000 or so words in the document. It is also a long series of court cases which establish precedents in law, and a long series of Presidential acts that have not been challenged by either Congress or the courts. I can think of two or three important precedents:

Marbury vs. Madison: This case established the power of the federal courts to void acts of Congress and the President as being unconstitutional.

Tyler's Ascendance to the Presidency: The constitution did not stipulate that when a President left office in mid-term (e.g., through death or impeachment) that the Vice President then became President. It stipulated only that the duties of the President would be carried out by the Vice President. The unstated implication was that Congress would by law establish a means of choosing a new President, such as by special election. After the death of President Harrison in 1841, Vice President John Tyler insisted on being sworn in as President, thus establishing the precedent that the Vice President actually becomes President when the President dies, is disabled, or otherwise can not act as President.

Roosevelt and the Navy’s Tour: President Theodore Roosevelt decided to show the world that the United States wielded a big stick by sending the Navy on a tour around the world. At the time there was money appropriated by Congress sufficient only to allow the Navy to steam half way around. Roosevelt sent the Navy off anyway, arguing that if Congress wanted to leave the Navy on the other side of the world it could do so. Of course, Congress had to appropriate the additional money to enable the Navy to complete the tour. The President established the precedent that even the Congressional power of the purse does not prevent the Commander in Chief from doing what he pleases with the armed forces.

President Bush has established, or has tried to establish these and other precedents:

1. The power to prevent members of executive departments from testifying before Congress;
   
2. The power to listen to telephone conversations between Americans without warrants;
   
3. The power to designate persons, even American citizens, as enemy combatants and to hold them in prison indefinitely without habeas corpus or a fair trial;
   
4. The power to weaken or change the intent of a law by issuing a signing statement at the time he signs the bill into law in which he expresses his understanding of the law and his intent about enforcing it.

Mr. Fein argues that Congress must act now, during Mr. Bush’s term of office, to void these precedents. A way to void them is to impeach the President and the Vice President for doing these things. If nothing is done during Bush’s remaining term, the next President, whoever he or she may be, will be able to exercise these powers and will claim that the President has the implicit authority as Commander in Chief to do so, following the custom of his or her predecessors. Mr. Fein wonders whether Republicans want a future president Hillary Clinton to have the powers that Mr. Bush has illegally claimed for himself. If not, they should urge the impeachment of the President now.

Labels: bad precedents, Bruce Fein, dangerous precedents, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, impeachment, James Madison, Theodore Roosevelt

In my previous blog on this subject I argued that there is a weakness in our constitutional system that allows a stubborn and ill-informed President to conduct a war in a way that is harmful to the nation's armed forces as well as to the nation itself. However, the cure for this possibility is not to change the Constitution so as to take away the President's authority as the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. What is needed first is a recognition of the difference between tactics and strategy.

Strategy, like other policies of government, should be decided by a representative legislature. Otherwise, we do not have a republican form of government; we do not have democracy. Strategy includes deciding whether to wage war and on what country to wage it. Strategy includes deciding how big a war to wage. Strategy includes deciding whether to go all out to win a war or to pursue the war with limited objectives. These are all strategic decisions and should be made by the people's representatives.

Tactics include the means and techniques of waging war. Shall one of our armies attack on the right or on the left or in the center? How many troops and what kind shall we use for laying siege to or occupying one of the enemy's cities? Shall we attack a seaport from the sea with our navy, from the air with our air force, of from land with our army? These are decisions that I believe are tactical, not strategic. The President and his generals and admirals should have a free hand regarding the choice and application of tactics.

A serious problem with the current war in Iraq is that there is no consensus regarding strategy. We started the war with the presumption that all would be over in six weeks. Iraq's army could be defeated easily, Baghdad occupied, and Saddam Hussein replaced by a new President of our choosing. We had one lined for the job: Ahmad Chalabi. Things didn't work out as expected. At that point, there should have been a debate and a new decision regarding our strategy, our goal in Iraq. There was no such debate. Both houses of Congress were controlled by members of the President's party. Rather than debate our changed goals in Iraq, these party leaders were motivated to protect the President from the embarrassment of having to agree to a new and much less ambitious set of goals for what we could reasonably accomplish. There was no debate. In fact, even with the change of party control in both houses, there is no substantive debate today about a new strategy, a new set of goals for Iraq.

Instead of debating and coming to a consensus about what we wish as a nation to accomplish in Iraq we are now in a pissing contest about whether the President has absolute power. We are arguing about whether "Commander in Chief" confers upon George Bush the power of an absolute monarch. We should be debating and coming to an agreement about what we can still accomplish in Iraq, given the armed forces we have and our ability to engage such countries as Iran, Syria, Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia in a diplomatic effort to limit the civil war in Iraq and eventually to create an effective government for that country that does not involve putting another strong man, like Saddam, in power.

Labels: Ahmad Chalabi, George Bush, strategy, tactics of war, the Imperial Presidency