The GOP goes down the rabbit hole

This post was recently published in the PA newspaper Voices (July/August edition). Even though I wrote it, I think I need to credit them in some manner. Therefore, um, I hope this suffices.

-W.

Everyone knows that the cartoon is the true barometer of American politics. Recently, CNN’s Bill Mitchell portrayed Mr Bush announcing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death: While the president looked somber, his dancing shadow played the castanets. Indeed, between the surprise news of al-Zarqawi and the completion of Iraq’s government, it should have been a good few weeks for the Republican Party.

Unfortunately, the weeks also saw the suicides of three Guantanamo inmates (a “good PR move” on their part, according to one senior State Deptartment official), the 2500^th U.S. casualty in Iraq, and continual news about Haditha.

On June 16^th, House Republicans fought back with a resolution entitled “Declaring that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary.” This clever bit of skullduggery belied the GOP’s growing desperation in the face of sagging support, but it was clever nonetheless.

Following a similar item in the Senate, the House resolution praised U.S. troops, labeled Iraq the “central front” in the war on terrorism and rejected any “arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment” of U.S. troops. As reported by Forbes, this was an attempt “to force the Democrats’ hands… to put all members on record in support of the president’s wartime policies.” The House resolution passed 256-153; the Senate 93-6.

In short, brilliant. Your party is hurting, due in part to growing dissatisfaction with the war. Craft a resolution that places your opponents in a ridiculous paradox. If they vote yea, they affirm the execution of the war and reject a timetable. This should make them terribly unpopular with their party; or you may be able to cast them as weathervanes. If they vote nay, they are on record stating that they don’t support our troops and that they think America will lose the war on terror. Come midterm elections, you don’t even have to make up smut for your commercials. Flawless—as long as you believe your constituents are too ignorant to investigate your ads and discover your bald manipulation of the political process. (Too cynical? Cf. former Senator Max Cleland.)

Yet nothing is that simple in Wonderland, D.C. The Pentagon revealed its own surprise on June 21: a 74-page “debate prep book,” emailed to select members of Congress. According to ABC News, the document “is an exhaustive rebuttal of criticisms of the war and a defense of the administration’s conduct of the war.”

Hardly. By my reading (The Raw Story has a copy on the web) it is a poorly organized collection of unsupported assertions and vacuous talking points. But what do you expect? The military is not known for its ability to convince folks with words. Now they’re providing debate tips to senators?

Further, the document is illegal. As Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) pointed out in a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon (an arm of the Executive) spent “taxpayer dollars to produce partisan political documents,” with the implicit intent of lobbying the Legislative. Aside from raising eyebrows concerning the Constitution’s separation of powers, this violates at least two acts of Congress. The Pentagon quickly recalled the document.

This was the White House’s turn to look nonsensical, but not long before the roles were reversed. Remember Representative William Jefferson (D-LA)? After finding $90,000 in his freezer, the FBI and Justice Dept. stormed his office with a court warrant. The GOP should have been delighted that a Democrat was taking center stage in the “Culture of Corruption.” Instead, they exploded. Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) demanded that the White House order any confiscated materials returned. House brass held a meeting in which (according to the Washington Post) there was talk of demanding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ resignation. Meanwhile, Mr Gonzales, along with Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and FBI Director Robert Mueller III all threatened to resign should Mr Bush return the documents.

Apparently the Legislative was upset about the Executive overstepping its reach.

Wait… what? Since when is this Congress concerned about the expansion of Executive power? Besides, why challenge the administration when they could sit back and watch a Democrat get pilloried? Maybe Mr Hastert is hiding something in his office. (“The Daily Show” speculates he is hording candy bars and cheeseburgers.)

What could cause all this mad behavior? Surely not the Democrats. The left is as divided now as they’ve ever been. Most likely they will run in all directions until November, to no end (save ranting and panting and occasionally colliding; they would fit nicely in Lewis Carroll’s work).

House Republicans would do well to forget both Democrats and the White House in order to get back to the business of Congress: doing nothing. Witness the profound summer agenda of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN): ban gay marriage, ban flag burning, curtail abortion. As for the executive branch, its offices should emulate their boss: go on vacation.

-W.