Madam Secretary, Why Don't They Love Us?

On Fox News Sunday (2/25/2007), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explained why Congress should not reconsider the 2002 authorization of discretionary force granted to George Bush. Jr.:

“It would be like saying that after Adolf Hitler was overthrown, we needed to change then, the resolution that allowed the United States to do that, so that we could deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown.”

The implied camparison between Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein is absurd. Hitler conquered Europe, invaded Russia, and killed millions. Hussein was steam-rolled twice and captured in a hole in the ground. The Roosevelt administration did not have to invent stories about German and Japanese aggression to sell a war. And there was no resolution that “allowed” us to prevail or which gave President Roosevelt extraordinary war powers.

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The next day, Congress declared war against Japan. Three days later, Germany delivered a declaration of war to the State Department’s European Division under Secretary of State Cordell Hull (left), one of Rice’s predecessors. Congress declared war against Japan and Germany in the quaint, pre-9/11, Constitutional way.

U.S. Presidents did not determine post-war plans for Europe. Over Republican opposition, Congress approved the Marshall Plan and President Truman signed it in 1948. It was named after General George Marshall (right), former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who became Secretary of State in 1947.

The U.S. occupied Germany and Japan through the early 1950s, but the Germans and Japanese did not shoot U.S. troops or plant roadside bombs. Now, flash forward. Through war and economic sanctions, the U.S. has killed more Iraqis than former U.S. client, Saddam Hussein, who was overthrown and hanged in a soap episode you can download on the internet. Inexplicably, some Iraqis are still targeting their liberators and anyone connected to those liberators. I don’t understand, Madam Secretary. Why don’t they love us?

George the Fourth

When the administration’s widespread, illegal wiretapping program was exposed, George Bush, Jr. admitted it on tv. He promised to continue it. There was no debate about whether he flaunted the F.I.S.A. provisions; he simply took the position that as President, he can violate the law.

Congress, of course, is controlled by Republicans; so Congress caved in. Rather than dispute George Bush, Jr.’s claim of privileged status, Congress proposed changes in the law which would essentially make executive requests for warrants voluntary. Republicans and Democrats submitted questions about the intercept operation to Bush’s Department of Justice, and the Department of Justice responded, in part, with this:

Just as one President may not, through signing legislation, eliminate the Executive Branch's inherent constitutional powers, Congress may not renounce inherent presidential authority. The Constitution grants the President the inherent power to protect the nation from foreign attack, and Congress may not impede the President's ability to perform his constitutional duty.*

The executive branch’s opinions are certainly relevant; but theoretically, they don’t have the last say. Theoretically, the constitutionality of laws is determined by the Supreme Court. Since no case turning on this issue has yet reached the Court, the validity of Bush’s defense cannot be assumed merely because he wishes it. As the facts currently stand, he is a confessed felon. He is in favor of the new guidelines and committed to ignoring them. When he signed the Patriot Act reauthorization earlier this month, he added a statement that he was not required to comply with the Act.

I simply do not believe that James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and the rest of our founders contemplated extraordinary war-time powers for an executive who could then start wars purely as a device to gain more control. I don’t think they were that stupid. And as I recall, they were generally opposed to monarchy.

* See http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/ for 3/25/2006 for links to the Justice Department pdfs and the Boston Globe report on Bush’s signing statement. The article is titled "Administration tells Congress (again) — We won't abide by your 'laws'"
____________________

George Will Not

Hopelessly conservative pundit George Will wrote an editorial for the Washington Post titled “No Checks, Many Imbalances.” (2/16/2006, p. A27) In it, he pondered future Congressional authorizations of presidential military powers. If the Bush administration prevails with its doctrine of presidential powers, why would any future President bother to consult Congress? According to the neo-con view of the executive branch of government:

…whenever the nation is at war, the other two branches of government have a radically diminished pertinence to governance, and the president determines what that pertinence shall be.

George Will also questioned the position that the President is the only agent for the nation in foreign affairs:

That non sequitur is refuted by the Constitution’s plain language, which empowers Congress to ratify treaties, declare war, fund and regulate military forces, and make laws "necessary and proper" for the execution of all presidential powers. Those powers do not include deciding that a law — FISA, for example — is somehow exempted from the presidential duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” (Emphasis in the original)

And then, Will threw his argument away. Rather than have Congress assert its Constitutional powers, rather than have Congress perform its constitutional responsibility to declare war, rather than have the executive faithfully execute the laws of the land, Congress should revise the laws to accommodate George Bush, Junior:

with language that does not stigmatize what he has been doing, but that implicitly refutes the doctrine that the authorization is superfluous.

Implicitly refutes? Why not explicitly? And what does he mean when he speaks of “language that does not stigmatize” prior felonies? George Will will not get it; he refuses to get it. The checks and balances of our system can only be defended through application, not abdication.

____________________