Keeping the Republic Blog

State of the Union 2007 -- 1/24/07

Last night was President Bush’s State of the Union address and that seems to be the focus of all the papers today.  President Bush’s  2007 State of the Union Address, 1/23/07 

The general consensus seems to be that he didn’t say much new, made some domestic policy proposals, but saved his real energy for rallying Congress to get behind him on the escalation in Iraq, though he intends to go ahead (and in fact has gone ahead) with or without them.  You can read some analysis here (Dan Balz, “The State of the President: Beleaguered,  Washington Post, 1/24/07), and here (Kate Zernike, A Shift in Power, Starting with ‘Madam Speaker,’” The New York Times, 1/23/07.) 

Freshman Senator Jim Webb from Virginia gave the Democrats' response with some economic overtones, but mostly focused on a war he thinks is wrong.  As Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy and a former Marine himself whose son is serving in Iraq right now, Webb’s credentials make it hard for the Republicans to paint him as soft on terror or as lacking support for the armed forces. (Michael D. Shear, “Va’s Webb Offers a Blunt Challenge to Bush,” Washington Post, 1/24/07) 

Bush gave this speech with approval ratings matching his lowest (for a sum of recent polls, see this), and facing a Democratic Congress for the first time.  But on the issue that is causing almost all his trouble, he and his administration are unrepentant.  See, for example, not only his speech, but this Wolf Blizter interview with the Vice-President from this afternoon.   

In the last post I asked what is at stake in the issue of the war.  With more and more Republicans starting to side with the Democrats (John Holushna, Senate Panel Opposes Troop Increase in Iraq, 12-9,” Washington Post, 1/24/07)   the war is taking up all the air left in Bush’s presidency, and setting the agenda for the 2008 presidential race.

That race is starting to shape up, with two new Democrats (Clinton and Richardson) in this weekend, and John Kerry out as of this afternoon, and another Republican (Sam Brownback) joining in as well.  More on all that soon.

Welcome Back -- 1/10/07

Welcome back to a new semester of news. 

With a new House of Representatives and a new Senate, both headed by Democrats, President Bush has his work cut out for him tonight as he offers a new plan for Iraq – one he calls a strategy for victory and his opponents call an escalation of a war he can’t win.  Watch his speech this evening, but read some analysis beforehand.  This piece in the New York Times gives some sense of what the congressional response is likely to be (Jeff Zeleny and Carl Hulse, "Democrats Plan Symbolic Votes against Iraq," 1/9/07); this one from the Washington Post highlights some of the internal politics behind Bush’s plan (Michael Abramowitz, et al., "With Iraq Speech, Bush to Pull Away from His Generals," 1/10/07).

What is at stake for Bush in this speech?  Why is he still trying to win a war with a strategy that over sixty percent of Americans oppose?   What is at stake for the new Democratic majorities in Congress? Is Iraq an issue they want to deal with right now?  Why or why not?

Is There a Speaker in the House? 10/21/06

No time to write much, but a pair of articles from the Washington Post to bring to your attention on the current Speaker of the House  Micheal Grunwald and Jim VandeHei, Hastert’s Team Mentality to be Tested as Foley Scandal Unfolds, 10/16/06)  and the woman who would like to replace him (Lois Romano, The Woman Who Would be Speaker, 10/21/06) .   Nice analyses of their respective leadership styles.

Also, see this fun one on the origin and  scope of “October surprises.”  (Linton Weeks, Boo! An Inevitable October Surprise, 10/21/06)

All Foley, All the Time -- 10/8/06

Most of the news in the last week has been consumed with the latest developments concerning former congressman Mark Foley’s inappropriate and possibly criminal behavior toward the high school-aged congressional pages who come to DC each year to work in Congress, and debates about how much Republican leaders of Congress knew about his behavior and when they knew it. 

The coverage of the scandal has been a classic case of a media “feeding frenzy” (see KTR, p. 663) and rather than giving a minute by minute report of events as they have unfolded, I have delayed posting about this until we could see something of what the political fallout would be.

The short answer seems to be that, unlike the Abramoff scandal which involved fairly complex financial and lobbying improprieties, the Foley scandal resonates with the public.  Sex scandals make for good gossip and the question of whether the House Republicans violated the public trust in failing to care for kids in their custody is one that strikes at the heart of the family values that the Republicans base much of their electoral appeal on.  Since there are already issues of Republican competency in this election, this scandal has what news people call “legs”  -- it won’t go away quickly.

Today’s Washington Post has a good piece (Michael Grunwald and Chris Cillizza, Foley Consuming GOP as Elections Draw Near, 10/8/06) on what this scandal means politically for the Republicans, especially on the chances that it will disillusion the party’s value-concerned base and keep them home on election day.  

The Foley scandal has hindered Republican efforts to control the agenda in the days leading up to the election and the war news (casualties in Iraq are at a two year high ) will make that difficult even when the scandal begins to recede. That events are taking a measurable toll on Republicans is apparent as the first wave of post-Foley polls come in (See for example, Marcus Mabry, A Political Limbo, Newsweek, 10/7/06.) 

Bush Wins Terror Bill and the Campaign Continues -- 9/29/06

Both Houses of Congress have now passed the terror interrogation bill. The WaPo does a good job of setting out what it entails. (R. Jeffrey Smith, Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill, 9/29/06).  The NYT explains why 32 Democrats in the Senate opposed the bill even though Republicans have vowed to use their vote against them in the upcoming election. (Carl Hulse, Democrats See Strength in Bucking Bush, 9/28/06)   Bush is already accusing the Democrats of soft on terrorism and weak on repulsing the enemy,  signaling the theme that his campaigning can be expected to take over the next month or so. (Michael A. Fletcher, Bush Attacks ‘Party of Cut and Run,” WaPo, 9/29/06)  

The war will be an issue both sides will seek to exploit.  That Bush will not have it all his own way was apparent with early reports on the Bob Woodward book that will be released on Monday. (Bob Woodward was one of the two Washington Post reporters who uncovered the Watergate scandal through painstaking investigative reporting in the 1970s, leading to Nixon’s resignation.  He has written a number of books about Washington since.) Though his previous two books on the Bush administration have painted a generally positive picture of Bush and the war effort, this one is much more damning (David E. Sanger, Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq, NYT, 9/29/06.)   Woodward also has an appearance scheduled on 60 Minutes this Sunday.  Advance reports of the interview indicate that it will be troublesome for Bush as well since he claims that the administration is concealing the worst news about Iraqi violence and the power of the insurgency from the American public. (Reuters, Woodward: Bush Concealing Level of Iraq Violence, WaPo, 9/28/06)

The Costs of War -- 9/28/06

A couple of things to note with regard to the Iraq war.

First, as I noted below in discussing the compromise between the White House and the Senate on the interrogation bill, it looks like Pres. Bush is getting much of what he wants, including quick passage of the bill so that he can sign it before Republican congresspeople go home to campaign against any Democrats who vote against it.  The House voted on the bill yesterday and the Senate, having voted down Democratic amendments to beef up detainee rights, is set to do so today. (Charles Babbington, House Approves Bill on Detainees, 9/28/06)  

An editorial in the more liberal New York Times is solidly against the bill but so is one in the usually-supportive-of-the-Iraqi-war Washington Post. 

Andrew Sullivan, a conservative libertarian critic of a war he once supported, has a link on his blog to a YouTube of military, religious, and intelligence experts testifying before Congress on the harmful effects of the behavior that this bill will allow the military and the CIA to engage in.  Sullivan’s blog is kind of eccentric since he covers a variety of issues, but it is the go-to place for anti-torture links and debate on the subject.  He often gives a hearing to his critics, so it is not just one-sided (though there is no doubt about where he stands.)

Jonah Goldberg, in the conservative National Review Online, is one of Sullivan’s critics, claiming that he fails to consider some of the reasons why we engage in coercive interrogation techniques and thinks we are too quick to call them torture. (When Push Comes to Torture, NRO, 9/27/06) 

As you read this stuff, think about the issues raised in Chapter 5 of KTR (p. 157) on the trade-offs between security and freedom.  Thomas Hobbes showed what kind of government fearful people would choose – a Leviathan that protects them but demands all their rights in exchange.  Anything short of that demands debate about how much freedom, how much security.  By urging the quick passage of this bill as an election ploy and threatening to stop all interrogations if it isn’t passed, Bush is silencing the debate that should accompany any decision to reduce the liberties America values.  Even Goldberg concludes his essay with these words:

“In the recent debate over torture, everybody decided to kick the can down the road on what torture is and isn’t. This argument will be forced on us again, no matter how much we try to avoid it. We’ll be sorry we didn’t take the debate more seriously when we had the chance.”

~~~

Another issue to follow today is the partial release by Pres. Bush, yesterday, of the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate), a report prepared by the US intelligence community that basically says that the Iraq war has had a negative effect on US safety.  (Mark Mazzetti, Backing Policy, President Issues Terror Estimate, 9/26/06)

The report, issued in April, was leaked to the New York Times last weekend. Amid calls from Democrats that the report should be made public, Bush declassified a few pages of it, and now the two parties are both trying to spin the results their way.  Most analysis seems to support the Democratic contention that the report paints a grim picture of the war and the impact it has had in breeding new supporters of terror.  Here is the New York Times’ take, but you can find similar views in the rest of the mainstream media: David Sanger, Study Doesn’t Share Bush’s Optimism on Terror Fight, 9/26/06) 

 If Republican members of Congress plan to go home and campaign on Democrats softness on terrorism, the Democrats are headed home to complain that the Republicans’ policies are increasing it.  Hold on to your hats and get ready for a wild ride to Election Day.  The NYT has a nice piece on the increasingly negative campaign commercials that candidates are airing this season: Adam Nagourney, Theme of Campaign Ads: Don’t Be Nice, 9/26/06 

Let's Make a Deal -- 9/22/06

One of the great blessings of politics is that it allows us to negotiate solutions to intractable problems, to cooperate, to make deals, to compromise so that all sides of a dispute can get something of what they want, even if they lose something in the process.

In the deal cut by Senate Republicans and the White House over the president’s interrogation bill, it’s difficult to see what the White House lost.  Despite changes in the language, President Bush will still be allowed to redefine the terms of the Geneva Conventions for all practical purposes when he orders the CIA to interrogate prisoners, and classified information can still be kept from prisoners facing trial based on that evidence.  On a first reading of the deal, what chiefly seems to have been gained by the Senate is deniability.  They are not officially giving the president approval to redefine the Geneva Conventions, but he can effectively do so at his discretion.

I’ll post more on this as analysis comes in, but read the coverage in the Times (Kate Zernike, Republicans Reach a Deal on Detainee Bill, 9/22/06), the WaPo (R. Jeffrey Smith and Charles Babbington, White House, Senators Near Pact on Interrogation Rules, 9/22/06) and the LAT (Julian Barnes and Richard Simon, Bush Bows to Senators on Detainees, 9/22/06) whose headline, at least, sees Bush as capitulating more than the other papers do. Editorials in the Times and the WaPo are both strongly critical of the compromise.   

What this deal appears to do is clear the way for approval of Bush’s bill before members of Congress go home to campaign.  If Democrats vote with them, Republicans can claim a bipartisan victory for Bush.  If Democrats vote against the bill, they can be cast as soft on terror and weak on defense – precisely the outcome Bush and Rove had hoped for in bringing up this issue now. Public opinion polls show that their effort to change the subject to national defense has shown some success as Republican fortunes have improved somewhat (at least, depending on which polls you read.)

Stay tuned….

Sunday Follow Up

The Sunday papers are often a chance to get follow-ups on the week's news, or longer pieces analysing events.  A good piece this a.m. from the Sunday Washington Post on the continuing battle to set the agenda in the days before the election: Jonathan Weisman, Tribunal Dispute Could Ruin GOP Strategy, WaPo, 9/17/06.

Key Republican Senators Balk at Bush Push 9/15/06

Both the Times and the Post have excellent articles this a.m. on the Republican rebellion in the Senate Armed Services Committee over Bush’s proposals to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions to allow the CIA greater latitude to interrogate terror suspects and to set up military commissions to try those suspects.  Read both pieces – there is much overlap but between them they do a terrific job of setting out just what is at stake in this dispute – what Bush intended his proposal to accomplish and what it has actually done so far.

• Carl Hulse, An Unexpected Collision Over Detainees.  NYT 9/15/06
• Charles Babbington and Jonathan Weisman, Senators Defy Bush On Terror Measure.  WaPo, 9/15/06

9/11 and Electoral Politics 9/14/06

With September 11 coming less than two months before Election Day every year, and immediately after the Labor Day launch of the campaign,  it may be too much to hope that politicians would refrain from using it as a rallying cry to get voter support.  Sure enough, on the fifth year anniversary of the bombing of the World Trade Center, Election Day politics got intertwined with memorials and remembrances and warnings against terrorists.

Tuesday morning, Dan Balz and Michael Abramowitz of the Washington Post summed it up: “President Bush's Oval Office speech last night was the culmination of two weeks of efforts to rally the nation behind his policies and presidency by summoning the memory of Sept. 11, 2001.” (President Tries to Win Over a War-Weary Nation, 9/12/06)

Bush’s efforts were about rallying support for the war, as the Post points out, but they were also an attempt to set the agenda for the election campaign. The Republicans would much rather have people talking about the September 11 attacks and national security, issues on which they poll relatively well, than about a war that headlines remind us daily is not going as promised.

Last week, for instance, Bush gave a speech in which he dramatically tried to change the terms of debate by turning some of the most damaging criticisms of his administration into positives. (R. Jeffrey Smith and Michael Fletcher, Bush Says Detainees Will Be Tried, Washington Post 9/7/06)  He has been criticized in the past by both Democrats and Republicans for overreaching his powers as an executive by setting up military tribunals to try terror suspects, for ignoring the Geneva Conventions, for incarcerating prisoners in Guantanamo bay, Cuba, without due process, for allowing the CIA to operate clandestine prisons around the world, for condoning the torture of prisoners of war and for permitting the NSA to eavesdrop on the conversations of Americans. 

In his speech last week he tried to turn those negatives into positives by declaring that his actions were necessary to keep American safe.  He admitted that the US had had held terror suspects secretly and subjected them to controversial interrogation techniques (Bush doesn’t call it torture.) He defended his administration’s actions and said he was transferring 14 prisoners accused of perpetrating the 9/11 attacks to Guantanamo Bay and was asking Congress to give him the authority to order military trials of the sort the Supreme Court had called a halt to in June.  Following his speech, Republicans said they intended to bring his proposals to a vote as soon as possible, hoping to force Democrats into either voting to support Bush or casting a vote against prosecution of the terror suspects, which would help to brand them weak on national security. 

Debate on that vote is currently going on in Congress.  Today (Thursday) Colin Powell, Bush’s former Secretary of State opposed the creation of military commissions for the purpose of trying prisoners, saying that “"The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." (William Branigin, Powell Opposes Effort to ‘Redefine’ Geneva Provision, Washington Post, 9/14/06.)   At the same time, despite Bush’s personal visit to Capitol Hill to lobby for the passage of his bill, the Senate Armed Services Committee rejected Bush’s proposal that would deny some key rights to prisoners in favor of one that grants them more protections. (David Stout, Senate Panel Defies Bush on Detainee Bill. New York Times, 9/14/06)    Four Republican senators (McCain, Warner, Graham and Collins) joined with all of the Democrats on the committee to reject the president’s version of the bill.

If the Republican strategy is to drive a wedge between the two parties, it may not work if a bipartisan group continues to oppose Bush’s bill.  At issue are whether prisoners have a right to see the evidence that is being used against them and whether statements obtained through torture can be sued as evidence.  Part of the wider debate is whether the U.S. engages in torture, and what actually constitutes torture.  See this video for Bush’s views as expressed to journalist Matt Lauer.  

Although we do not address the issue of torture directly, we discuss the conflicts involved in protecting civil liberties and national security on pp. 157-158 of KTR.  How do you respond to the criticism that if we torture prisoners and deny them their rights, we have become little better than the people we seek to protect ourselves against?

Playing Catch Up After A Busy Week 9/12/06

I am working on a post that will attempt to make some sense of the flurry of speeches given recently by White House personnel, including President Bush.  These speeches, which aim to remind Americans of the horrors of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center are also designed to be the opening salvos in the electoral battle for the control of Congress.  I’ll get that post up as soon as I can.  In the meantime, here are some important articles to keep up with.

Dan Balz and Michael Abramowitz , President Tries to Win Over a War-Weary Nation, Washington Post, 9/12/06

R. Jeffrey Smith and Michael Fletcher, Bush Says Detainees Will Be Tried, Washington Post 9/7/06)  

Jim VandeHei and Chris Cillizza, In a Pivotal Year, GOP Plans to Get Personal Millions to Go to Digging Up Dirt on Democrats

Washington Post, 9/10/06.

Dana Priest and Ann Scott Tyson, FIVE YEARS LATER: An Elusive Target Bin Laden Trail 'Stone Cold': U.S. Steps Up Efforts, But Good Intelligence On Ground is Lacking, Washington Post, 9/10/06.

Charles Babbington and R. Jeffrey Smith, Bush's Detainee Plan Assailed Military Lawyers and Senators Call Proposed Rules Unfair, Washington Post, 9/10/06.

David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, Cheney’s Power No Longer Goes Unquestioned, New York Times, 9/10/06
Jeffrey Rosen, A Terror Trial, With or Without Due Process, New York Times, 9/10/06
Michael Abramowitz, Cheney: Domestic Iraq Debate Encouraging Adversaries, Washington Post, 9/10/06 

Katrina -- 8/29/06

Greetings, Everyone!  Welcome back to a new semester.

Lots in the news but as relates to American government, the biggest story seems to be all the political posturing around the first year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. There are a couple of different threads to that story.

First is the real assessment of where the gulf area recovery efforts are after one year.  The answer seems to be – they are limping along.  A Wall Street Journal article (subscription only) says that the recovery is only patchy and much remains to be done (Christopher Cooper, In New Orleans, Recovery is Sporadic) and a Washington Post piece on Mississippi says the same thing (Peter Whoriskey, In Miss., Hope of Going Home Dwindles)   The poignant story of one family’s post-storm travails in Slate gives a personal perspective – and this from an educated and articulate writer well able to navigate the bureaucratic nightmares storm survivors face.  (Blake Bailey, My Year of Hurricanes) The plight of poorer, less well educated citizens is much tougher.

A second thread of the story that is receiving lots of coverage is the political aspect of the whole thing.  Democrats are convinced that Katrina is a weak spot for the Republicans as the midterm congressional elections approach this November.  Many analysts expect major Republican losses (not abnormal for a midterm election – see KTR p. 286) and believe that the Republicans could lose control of the House of Representatives in that election, and possibly the Senate as well, though that is a longer shot for the Dems.  The Democrats think the Republicans are especially vulnerable over the issue of governmental competence as demonstrated by the response to Katrina and the waging of the Iraq war, and so they are playing up the Katrina anniversary to keep the issue alive.  See the Washington Post, Michael Abramowitz, Bush, Top Democrats Flock to Coast.

Meanwhile the Bush administration, believing that the President lost valuable standing with the public over Katrina, sees this anniversary as an opportunity for him to tout the rebuilding efforts down there and to regain some stature. The result is that New Orleans, still the scene of massive destruction, has become a political stage. (New York Times, Anne Kornblutt, Bush Visits Gulf Coast, Stressing Progress) 

A president is only as strong as his approval ratings (KTR, pp. 343-344 and below here) because he needs public approval to give him weight with Congress to get his agenda passed.  Since Bush’s ratings have been so low this year, many Republicans not only are not supporting him in Congress but are not even mentioning him in their reelection campaigns.  It is important for him to try to regain popularity.  But as Frank Newport of the Gallup organization argues (Little Impact of Katrina on Bush’s Overall Job Ratings), while the public evaluation of Bush declined after Katrina, the lasting damage seems to taken place this year, and owes as much to public disapproval of the war and rising gas prices as to a negative image of him as a strong and effective leader after Katrina. It's not clear that returning to New Orleans and hailing the reconstruction efforts that have been achieved will give him the boost he needs.

Presidential Signing Statements Revisited -- 4/30/06

The Boston Globe has an excellent article (Charlie Savage, Bush Challenges Hundreds of Laws, 4/30/06) that speaks to a recurring theme we have noted in this blog over the last four months: the Bush administration’s efforts to shore up what they see as the weakened power of the presidency. (See KTR p. 341 and the What’s at Stake in Chapter 8.) The Globe article says that President Bush used signing statements to claim the power to disregard more than 750 laws in the five years since he took office, compared to the 232 statutes his father challenged in 4 years and the 140 signing statements Bill Clinton issued in his eight years in office.

Savage quotes Bruce Fein, a former deputy attorney general during the Reagan administration, on the effects Bush’s efforts are likely to have on the checks and balances in American government: “’This is an attempt by the president to have the final word on his own constitutional powers, which eliminates the checks and balances that keep the country a democracy,’ Fein said. ‘There is no way for an independent judiciary to check his assertions of power, and Congress isn't doing it, either. So this is moving us toward an unlimited executive power.’”

After you read the article, it might be worth reconsidering some questions we asked back in January, during the Alito hearings:

What should the limits be on the president’s power? The founders debated this issue, but came down on the side of a limited executive (KTR pp. 111-114); the Bush administration seems focused on expansion (KTR 319-320, 368; 340-341). What are the costs of expanded executive power? What are the advantages?

Immigration and Presidential Leaking – 4/10/06

Sorry for the DeLay -- 4/6/06

I apologize to all for my recent absence from this site. As the editorial note posted tells you, I have been on the road a bit (I am on leave this semester to do some research for a book), but we have also been dealing with the loss of one beloved pet and the critical illness of another. Sometimes life just trips you up.

There are a couple of issues I’d like to discuss here, but I am going to divide them up over the next couple of days. Look for upcoming posts on immigration and the Massachusetts health care bill. Today we’ll talk about the announcement on Tuesday that Tom DeLay, the former House Majority Leader who resigned that post when he was indicted last year, will resign from Congress and not seek reelection in November.

The news about DeLay came in a Time Magazine exclusive interview with Mike Allen, quickly followed by an announcement by the man himself and nonstop interviews and media coverage everywhere. DeLay says he is quitting to spare the Republican Party the possible loss of his seat and because the upcoming campaign would be incredibly nasty. But DeLay has survived and even flourished in nasty campaigns before. What else is going on here?

The crash in DeLay’s career has been sudden. Just last year he was universally hailed or hated as the most powerful man in the U.S. House, a person who had almost single-handedly changed the way Congress does business (see the discussion of the K Street project below, for example) and who was largely instrumental in fostering the strong partisanship that has characterized American legislative politics since the Clinton years (DeLay was a powerful force behind the Clinton impeachment, for instance). But his tribulations quickly piled up. First he himself was indicted on money laundering charges, for which he still faces a trial. Then two close friends and former staffers have been indicted as part of the investigation into Jack Abramoff, and some believe that investigators are closing in on DeLay as well. (Jonathan Weisman and Chris Cillizza, DeLay to Resign from Congress, WaPo, 4/4/06.) With polls showing him running 50/50 in his district, the possibility that the once invincible “Hammer,” as he was called, could lose the election became very real, prompting his decision to quit (though he says he still believes he could have won).

He says his future plans are still uncertain, though he speaks of becoming a national leader of the conservative movement. The future of the Republicans he leaves behind in Congress is unclear as well. With Bush’s approval ratings too low to provide cohesion, and the man who kept them in line for so long on his way out, Republicans are beginning to show divisions in what once seemed like an unshakable party bloc (Carl Hulse, Republicans Are Finding Their House Now Divided, NYT, 4/6/06) and Democrats are delighted to see their once formidable foes on the ropes. (Howard Kurtz, Three Cheers for DeLay, WaPo, 4/5/06.)

During the DeLay years, the Republicans were remarkably successful at changing the rules of American politics to advantage their party – from the K Street Project to the Texas redistricting that bolstered their majority in the 2004 elections. The Democrats are now starting to think that they may have a chance to take back the majority (though it is a long shot still - see for example this map), at which time, of course, they would try to change the rules back to benefit their party. If you remember the theme of KTR,  that politics is about who gets what and how they get it, and that controlling the rules of the game helps you determine who will win and who will lose, much of this battle for control of Congress makes sense. If you remember the old adage that power corrupts, then the fate of Tom Delay begins to make some sense too. The Democrats, who faced corruption in their own ranks during their majority, would do well to remember it too.

More to come in a day or so on immigration and health care.

Civil Liberties: Moussaoui's, Al Qaeda's and Ours -- 3/16/06

Good morning, everyone.  Spring Break here at I.U. – hope yours is good wherever it finds you.

A couple of stories to follow this week. 

First, there is the curious story about the FAA lawyer in the Moussaoui sentencing trial. The lawyer, Carla Martin, seems to have single-handedly undermined the federal government’s effort to get the death penalty for 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. In opposition to the expressed orders of the judge in the case that the witnesses should not be exposed to the trial proceedings so that they could not alter their testimony, Martin sent emails to seven witnesses, strategizing about what they were going to say on the stand. (Adam Liptak, Crossing a Fine Line on Witness Coaching, NYT, 3/16/06.) The judge called her behavior “egregious,” and  said that the federal case against Moussaoui had to proceed without the testimony from the witnesses. Prosecutors say this deals their case a death blow, and have asked the judge to reconsider. (Jerry Markon, Prosecutors Scramble to Salvage 9/11 Case After Ruling, WaPo, 3/16/06.)

Since Moussaoui has pled guilty, it is hard to see what the fuss is about here. What is at stake is not whether he gets off free (he won’t) but whether he faces the death penalty or life imprisonment. It will help to understand what is happening here if we apply the procedural/substantive distinction we lay out in Chapters 1 and 2 of KTR (pp. 10-11, 47-48). We explain that often in procedural cultures (like ours) it is more important to ensure that the rules are followed properly than to achieve some particular substantive outcome. We put our faith in procedural due process, to be sure that the rules treat everyone fairly and impartially, and trust that fair results will follow. We could of course say, “Well, we know Moussaoui is guilty, he has confessed after all, so what difference does it make if we ignore this witness tampering at the sentencing stage. What the judge in the case has to grapple with is the fact that because our system guarantees fair rules to everyone, to deny Moussaoui his rights will jeopardize the rights of all of us. If they can be waived for him, they can be waived for anyone.

This issue throws into relief the ongoing scandal of the American treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo Bay. Some have tried to claim that because the stakes are so huge here (preventing a future terrorist attack) or because these prisoners are not on American soil or are not American citizens, that American procedural guarantees do not apply. Others argue that we are bound by the Geneva Convention and by our own standards of morals and decency to protect the human rights of those we take prisoner. Perhaps the most compelling reason against the torture, offered by critics such as Senator John McCain, himself a former prisoner of war of the Vietnamese, is that to treat the captives as we fear they would treat us sinks us to their level and endangers the American democratic ethic which is what we want above all to protect. The online journal Salon.com has excellent in depth coverage of the Abu Ghraib scandal and has just put up on its site an archive of 279 photos and 19 videos of the abuse, obtained form the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command. (Joan Walsh, The Abu Ghraib Files, salon.com.) 

Take a look at those photos and ask yourself what difference it makes if the United States engages in torture of its prisoners. Is this kind of substantive behavior (treating people as if they are guilty without a trial and taking an “ends justify the means” approach) ever justified? In the Abu Ghraib case, who is responsible for maintaining American standards of behavior – the people on the ground or the people in charge? Does the Abu Ghraib situation shed any like on the judge’s ruling in the Moussaoui trial?

***

Other stories to follow this week. President Bush is issuing a document today reaffirming the “Bush Doctrine” of preemptive war that we discuss in Chapter 18 (pp. 811-812). (Peter Baker, Bush to Restate Terror Strategy, WaPo, 3/16/06.) Essentially, the document will recommit the U.S. to the strategy we embarked on with the war against Iraq in 2002. Should that commitment be tempered by any of the events of the last three years?

Finally, take a look at the NYT article about how Republicans are seizing on Senator Russ Feingold’s efforts to censure President Bush over the NSA spying issue. With Bush’s approval ratings at new lows in the polls, Republicans need to rally their base to get them to turn out in the November congressional elections. Declaring that it is necessary to vote Republican in order to hold off censure or even impeachment proceedings gives them a way to excite voters who are frustrated with the previously popular president’s performance since he was reelected. (David D. Kirkpatrick, Call for Censure is Rallying Cry to Bush’s Base, NYT 3/16/06.) Feingold’s efforts have not been met with any marked success – far more senators voted to censure President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal than have stepped forward to support Feingold on this civil liberties issue. Why?

Divided Government -- 3/9/06

When a president has the public on his side, he can often get Congress to do what he wants, even when the majority party is other than his own. When his popularity begins to tank, it can even be difficult to get his own party to follow his agenda. That’s where President Bush finds himself now. With his approval ratings in some polls at the level of Nixon’s before he resigned, he has limited political clout with either party. Members of Congress who face reelection in less than nine months are reluctant to hitch their fates to his dimming star. (Carl Hulse, A Rebellion in the GOP on Security, A Signature Issue, NYT, 3/9/06.) 

That’s not news, of course, but it is one of the enduring stories of the last few months, as I have noted in this blog. The latest evidence is the outright resistance of Congress to the Dubai ports deal. Ironically, the actual issue here may be a red herring – the ports deal has been endorsed even by stalwart critics of the president. But with public opinion running heavily against it, it has become radioactive for Congress. Despite veto threats from the president, the House is acting to halt the takeover, and the Senate may not be far behind. (Andrea Stone, House Panel Votes to Kill Ports Deal, USA Today, 3/9/06.) 

The worsening relationship between the president and the legislature can be seen in President Bush’s remarks yesterday, blaming Congress for underfunding the post-Katrina rebuilding effort on the gulf coast. (Michael A. Fletcher and Spencer S. Hsu, Bush: Congress ‘Shortchanged’ New Orleans, WaPo, 3/9/06.)

For the president, of course, none of this is good news. For the rest of us, it may be a different story. The founders devised our system to check and balance itself, so that no one branch could become too powerful. With a president who believed in strengthening the executive branch, and Congress disinclined to cross him, we haven’t seen too much checking and balancing in the years since 9/11. What are the advantages and disadvantages for a democracy of a president and Congress finding themselves at loggerheads?

Presidential Capital -- 3/1/06

Still a kind of slow news period, but it's worth taking time to think about the impact on Bush of the many bits of bad news, self inflicted and otherwise, that have come his way in the last six months or so.

Last night in a TV news interview, President Bush said he wasn’t concerned about his low ratings in recent polls, and insisted that he still has plenty of political capital to get things done. Having hit an approval rating of 34% in a CBS poll released a couple days ago, however, he is sounding new depths and, wishful thinking aside, he does not have the clout even with congressional Republicans that he did when his fortunes were rosier.

In Chapter 8 we explain that a president’s ability to get things done legislatively depends to a large extent on his ability to persuade Congress to go along with him, which in turn depends on his popularity with the public. The furor over the Dubai deal, which appears to be in increasing trouble, despite the company itself having asked for an investigation of security concerns  (Carl Hulse, New Concerns on Port Deal are Raised in Congress, NYT, 3/1/06), shows that even Republicans loyal to Bush are deserting him over this.

There are some excellent analyses of Bush’s approval ratings and of polls on the Dubai port deal at mysterypollster.com (specifically, here and here). You can find good analysis of how the administration came to drop the ball so badly on this issue at Sheryl Gay Stolberg, How a Deal Became a Liability for the GOP (NYT, 2/26/06); and on the implications of that, along with events from Katrina to the Cheney hunting incident, on his ability to get things done in his second term at Tom Raum, Bush Beset by Political Miscues (WaPo, 2/27/06).

Cartoons, Hunting and U.S. Port Security -- 2/22/06

Sorry for the long time between posts. We were traveling and then dealing with a very sick dog.

While a number of events have taken place in the last two weeks, the three that have gotten the most air time by far are the worldwide protests about the Danish printing of cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad, the Cheney hunting accident and, most recently, the hullabaloo over the transfer of the control of six American ports from a British owned company to a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates.

The Danish cartoon story is a complex one, and it doesn’t really have to do with American domestic politics so I won’t cover it in any depth. It’s a good way to understand the concept of political culture we discuss in Chapter 2, however, (especially the clash between procedural societies in the west and more substantive cultures in the Arab world) and it illuminates some of what’s at stake in the melting pot versus crazy salad controversy. It also may help us think about a few issues that arise in Chapter 5 on civil liberties. One is freedom of religion. We see in the chapter (pp. 165-172) how Americans have struggled to find a balance between allowing religious freedom, but not permitting the state to establish or endorse a religion. A variation of that conundrum arises in the Danish cartoon case. Does religious freedom, with the toleration and respect that that implies, require all people to observe the strongly held religious norms and proscriptions of each religion? Another issue is freedom of the press. Does the fact that the press can print what it likes mean there are no limits on what it should print? This may not be a constitutional question, but an ethical one, that is, it raises issues not of what is legal, but of what is right. This ties into a third civil liberties issue that the Danish cartoon story raises – what is the role of self censorship in a democratic world? Revisit the discussion of free speech on campus (pp. 180-181) and ask yourself if there are any parallels between the political correctness issues raised there and the issues being debated with respect to the Danish cartoons.

About Cheney, I want to say only this. What is interesting to me from a political scientist’s perspective is the way the story developed “legs” and refused to go away despite the Vice President’s best efforts to make it do so. Lots of important stories fizzle for lack of public and media interest, and lots of trivial ones stick around forever. How come? The best analyses of this I have seen argue that it is not because what happened was of such earth-shaking importance (except, of course, to the people involved) but rather that it fit so well with the views many people already held about the Vice President, what political scientist Larry Sabato, who has studied the anatomy of such scandals, calls playing into the “subtext.” People already thought that Cheney was secretive and that he set his own rules, so his behavior over the hunting accident only reinforced that. Other than to weaken his own popularity ratings, however, there is probably minimal fallout from what Sabato calls the “feeding frenzy.”

Finally, this morning all the papers are abuzz with Bush’s declaration that he would veto any congressional legislation to halt the deal his administration has made to turn over control of 6 U.S. ports to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates. (David E. Sanger and Eric Lipton, NYT Bush Would Veto Any Bill Halting Dubai Port Deal, 2/22/06.)

Not only Democrats but many Republicans including House Speaker Denny Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist are calling on Bush to stop the deal since they fear it will endanger U.S. security to have our ports out of our control. Bush, who has not yet vetoed a bill (KTR, pp. 334-335) says he will veto one interfering with this deal and argues that Congress and the American people should trust him.

An editorial in the Washington Post (Port Security Humbug, 2/22/06) takes Bush’s side here, pointing out that the ports are already managed by a foreign-owned company (in Great Britain), that the UAE are allies, and that port security is currently and will continue to be controlled by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Nonetheless, Bush is getting clobbered by liberals and conservatives alike on this one, and in that sense he is probably reaping what he has sown. Since 9/11 he has emphasized that national security should take precedence over even such essentials to the American system as civil liberties and checks and balances. His detractors are simply using the same issue frame (a term borrowed from the media chapter, KTR p. 659) that the administration has polished over the years. He has yet to make a convincing case to the public that the port control issue does not present a case of “business as usual” trumping security concerns.

Budget Time -- 2/7/06

It's budget time. You can find coverage in all the morning papers of the $2.77 trillion budget Bush submitted to Congress yesterday. (See, for instance, David E. Sanger, Bush Budget Plan for $2.77 Trillion Stresses Security, NYT, 2/7/06.) While $2.77 trillion sounds like a lot of money, a closer look shows that the administration plans to cut a lot of domestic programs -- education, agricultural, and social -- and the budget doesn't even include spending for rebuilding New Orleans or maintaining the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. What it does do is to expand spending on national security and the military and it makes President Bush's tax cuts permanent. Because of that, we will continue to spend far more money than we bring in, increasing the national debt. (See Figure 18.3 in KTR, p. 783.)

Very few politicians this morning indicate that the budget will be passed as it is. Members of Congress of both parties who face reelection this year are wary of cuts to programs that their constituents value and conservative Republicans are concerned that Bush is unable to rein in spending and practice the fiscal conservativism he likes to preach. There is excellent coverage of this in the Wall Street Journal, but unless you have a subscription, you cannot access the site. The paper points out that the decisions are so tough that Congress may not be able to act on some of them until after the November election.

We explain the politics of the budget process on pp. 781-789 of KTR. It is a complex process, but, basically, budgets are asked to do a lot of work in a democratic system. They are tools for helping to maintain economic stability through the use of taxing and spending (called fiscal policy) but since the lawmakers who propose and approve budgets are elected officials, they are subject to all sorts of demands from the people who put them in office. But at the end of the day, government policy makers face the same economic laws the rest of us do when we make spending decisions. If we spend more than we bring in, we run into debt. What is not paid for today must be paid for with interest tomorrow. We can practice all kinds of fiscal gymnastics or make rosy assumptions about the future to hide that fact from ourselves, but it's ultimately a matter of money in and money out.

Bush's budget involves reducing permanently the money we bring in (through tax cuts) while spending increasing amounts of money for national security and the military -- goals that may not be compatible, as the WaPo's Jonathan Weisman points out. (Budget Plan Assumes Too Much, Demands Too Little, 2/7/06.)

Also in the papers this morning is coverage of the Senate Judiciary hearings into the warrantless spying by the NSA. Charles Babbington, of the Post, shows that this is not a simple partisan issue. While Democrats are mostly opposed to Bush's assumption of executive authority here, even many Republicans are worried about the implications of stregthening the presidency to that degree. (Activists on Right, GOP Lawmakers Divided on Spying, 2/7/06.)

Religious Protests, Congressional Elections, and Presidential Power -- 2/6/06

Good morning. No big events over the weekend but a couple of good pieces to think about.

One, from Sunday's NY Times, (Craig Smith, Adding Newsprint to the Fire, 2/5/06) does a fine job of outlining some of the issues at stake in the demonstrations by Muslims against a Danish newspaper's printing of cartoonists' images of the Prophet Muhammed (Islamic law forbids any imagery of him whatsoever). Consider the issues involved from the point of view of the political culture discussion in Chapter 2 (especially along the procedural/substantive political dimension) and the discussion of religious freedom and toleration in Chapter 5.

This morning's Washington Post has an article about the upcoming congressional elections in November (Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza, Handful of Races May Tip Control of Congress, 2/6/06). While it is way too early to make predictions (and the article doesn’t, in fact, make any) it does do a good job of laying out what are the electoral stakes in the 2006 midterm elections (which seats are vulnerable, what it will take to switch party control in each house, etc.) and putting them into recent historical context. For a close examination of the issues involved in the upcoming elections, (and a spiffy elections map) see CQPolitics.com.

Finally, see the LA Times for a good discussion of what's at stake in Bush's claim to inherent powers to act during wartime as the Senate begins hearings into the latest concrete instance of that claim -- Bush's order authorizing the NSA to eavesdrop on domestic phone calls (David G. Savage, The Power of the President, 2/6/06).  I've posted on the issues involved here, here, and here several times in the last month or so. Remember to refer to the What's at Stake in Chapter 8, and to consider how Bush's views of presidential power affect the checks and balances in the Constitution.

Boehner Elected as House Majority Leader -- 2/3/06

A couple of last items in a busy news week. As we noted earlier, the House Republicans held their elections Thursday to replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader. You can see the previous leadership in the chart on p. 295 of KTR. The leading candidate for the slot was Roy Blunt but he was beaten yesterday after two ballots by John Boehner (which, as all the papers tell you, is unexpectedly pronounced -- "BAY-ner").

The papers generally see this result as a) surprising, since Blunt was DeLay's protégé and had been telling everyone that he had the votes to win and b) a sign that Republicans are spooked by the scandals that have plagued them of late and wanted a candidate not associated with them. However, Boehner, while not part of these particular scandals, has a history of his own, when he was a part of the leadership structure under former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (see the profile in Ch. 3). And, even now, his relationship with lobbyists is, as he puts it, "cozy" but not "unethical." He seems to have been a compromise between Blunt, who promised business as usual, and a more genuinely reform candidate, John Shaddeg, who lost early on. Everybody covers this, but the two best analyses are in the WaPo, which has lots of insider details (Jim VandeHei and Shailagh Murray, Post-Abramoff Mood Shaped Vote for DeLay's Successor, 2/3/06) and the NYT (Adam Nagourney, A Cry of Concern by Republicans at Voter Unease, 2/3/06).

Also, all the papers note that the Bush administration has asked for $120 billion more for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, $70 billion of that through 2006. That figure is not part of the $439.3 billion Defense Department budget they are requesting for 2007, a five percent increase over the previous budget; the war expenditures are funded independently. See, for example, David Cloud, $70 Billion More is Sought for Military in War Zones (NYT, 2/3/06).

Alito Confirmed and SOTU Addressed -- 2/1/06

As all the papers indicate today, Samuel Alito was confirmed yesterday as expected, pretty much along a party line vote (four Democrats voted for, one Republican voted against). The NYT has a piece on how that may shape cases coming up this year. (Adam Liptak, Alito Vote May Be Decisive in Marquee Cases This Term, 2/1/06.)

By the way, a few days ago Dahlia Lithwick, the legal analyst for Slate had an excellent piece on the impact of the presidential signing statement that Alito supported in his Reagan days. She tends to be on the liberal side, but her analysis is pretty sound regardless of ideology. I noticed that Andrew Sullivan is promoting it on his blog (andrewsullivan.com) and he is generally a conservative libertarian. Anyway, Lithwick's piece is well worth reading and thinking about. (Dahlia Lithwick, Sign Here, Slate, 1/30/06.)

Also yesterday (or last night) was Bush's State of the Union Address. Most of the papers this morning seem to suggest that it was not a path breaking speech. He stuck to defending his foreign policy in Iraq and his NSA wiretapping, and launched a few domestic initiatives -- the tax incentives for medical savings accounts we mentioned the other day, and a modest plan to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. The WaPo has a good article on why Bush has little political capital to spend this year. (Dan Balz and Jim VandeHei, Lowered Expectations Reflect Political and Fiscal Realities, 2/1/06, and Ron Brownstein, in the LAT, also has a good analysis of what the president proposes to do, and why his goals were modest. (To Still Midterm Waters, Bush's Agenda Is Cautious, 2/1/06.) 

If you missed it, you can read the speech here. The LAT fact checks it here: Peter Wallsten and Maura Reynolds, Bush Stretches to Defend Surveillance, 2/1/06.

Tim Kaine, Governor of Virginia, gave the Democratic Response after the speech. (Michael Shear, Va.'s Kaine Assails "Poor Choices, Bad Management," WaPo, 2/1/06.) 

Alito, SOTU, DeLay and Race -- 1/30/06

A couple of quick things you should read this morning that supply background to events that are coming up this week: the Alito vote, the president's State of the Union Address, and the House vote to replace Tom DeLay.

The NYT has a good piece on the conservative strategy, begun in 1982, that has ended with Alito's nomination (and expected confirmation) to the Supreme Court. In Chapter 10 we make the argument that the Supreme Court, despite its robes and marble columns and velvet drapes, is a political institution. This article should drive that point home. (David D. Kirkpatrick, In Alito, G.O.P. Reaps Harvest Planted in 1982.)

The Times also has a piece, a little fluffy, but interesting, on the process of writing the State of the Union address. (Elizabeth Bumiller, Summing Up the Union, and in the Boss's Words.) There have been lots of leaks in advance of the speech, especially as we noted last week on the subject of the president's possible proposals on health care. Be sure to watch the speech tomorrow night and to read coverage of it the next day.

The Washington Post reviews how current political scandal and negative poll numbers for congressional Republicans are playing out in the House election on Thursday to choose a new Majority Leader to replace Tom Delay. (Jonathan Weisman, Corruption Scandals Cast Shadow on GOP Leadership Race.)

On another less pressing note, the Washington Post also covers a conference of social psychologists who have done some fascinating research on how people form political attitudes. In Chapter 11, we talk about how attitudes are transferred from generation to generation through political socialization, but these individual level studies put a new twist on how attitudes form -- how we process negative information about politicians we like and also how our racial biases influence our political choices. Controversial, but interesting stuff. (Shankar Vedantam, Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases.)

A Summary of the Week's News 1-27-06

No big news items this week on the domestic front, but lots of little ones. I've been saving them for a single post and, since today's news coverage obliging has some good catch up pieces, this post will be kind of long. You can savor it over the weekend.

Mostly the domestic news of the week has been focused on three issues: the Alito confirmation, the White House's offensive on the NSA spying issue, and the leaks and hints about the content of the President's State of the Union Address coming up on Tuesday.

Alito

As far as the Alito hearings go, it looks like the White House has the votes to confirm. No Republicans have defected so far and at least three Democrats will vote to confirm. Other Democrats oppose his confirmation either on the grounds that they think he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, which says that a woman's decision to have an abortion in the first three months of pregnancy is an exercise of the right to privacy, or because they believe that he will rule in a way to give too much power to the president (see the post on signing statements, below.)

Thursday Senator John Kerry announced that he would attempt to filibuster the vote on Alito and said he had the support of Senator Ted Kennedy. As we explain in KTR (pp. 306-308) a filibuster allows a minority of senators to halt activity on the Senate floor, but it can be stopped by a vote of cloture (which takes 60 votes.) The White House says it has those votes, and it probably does. In 2005 Republicans threatened to eliminate the use of the filibuster for judicial confirmations(a strategy they called the nuclear option) but a group of moderate Democrats and Republicans reached an agreement to preserve the legislative maneuver in exchange for an agreement not to support a filibuster unless there were extraordinary circumstances (KTR, p. 308.) It is unlikely that Kerry and Kennedy would seriously jeopardize the filibuster's fate here, but if they know they will lose the cloture vote they can take a stand without risking the nuclear option. The tactic is still controversial among Democrats right now. Though it pleases the Democratic base, many in the party fear that it will distract from issues where they feel the Republicans are really vulnerable. (Charles Babbington, Democrats Split Over Filibuster on Alito, WaPo, 1/27/06.) Senator Frist plans to schedule a vote to end debate on Monday and a vote to confirm Alito on Tuesday, a nice send-off for the President's State of the Union speech that night (see KTR, p. 334.)

NSA Eavesdropping

One issue the Democrats want to keep on the public's agenda is the NSA's domestic spying operation. The Bush administration has launched an offensive to frame the surveillance as necessary to keep Americans safe -- fanning out to TV talk shows and making public speeches (Bush even gave one at the NSA) arguing that only Americans having conversations with Al Qaeda members were eavesdropped on. They don't call it spying or eavesdropping they call it a "terrorist surveillance program," and they say they can't discuss it much because to do so would help the enemy. Critics of the eavesdropping dispute that and argue that the issue here is not safety, since Bush could have conducted the surveillance legally had he chosen to get search warrants, but rather the unchecked power of the executive. Nothing is new on this legally since I posted below; what has changed is the Bush administration's decision to take the case to the public in black and white terms. The political fight here is for how the issue is to be understood: If Bush succeeds in making it about security, the public is likely to support him; if his critics can make it about civil liberties and an executive power grab, they are less likely to do so. The latest New York Times poll shows this in graphic terms; 53% of respondents support eavesdropping to reduce the threat of terrorism, but only 46 % support it if terrorism is removed from the question. (Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder,