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Monday, Nov 23, 2009
A servile Congress has let Bush go on permanent vacation. But with U.S. security hanging in the balance, it's time to ask the hard-hitting questions.
Aug 25, 2005 | President Bush took a brief break this week from his monthlong vacation to deliver speeches in Utah and Idaho calling for staying the course in Iraq. Because American soldiers have died there, we must continue. "We will finish the task that they gave their lives for," Bush said in Salt Lake City on Monday.
He moved his vacationing in between to the Tamarack Resort in Donnelly, Idaho, where he made a short statement to the traveling White House press corps. He described the drafting of the Iraqi constitution as an "amazing event" in its guarantees of democracy and women's rights, and compared its deliberations to those at the Philadelphia convention that gave rise to the U.S. Constitution. "We had a little trouble with our own conventions writing a constitution," he said. Then he took a few questions.
"She expressed her opinion. I disagree with it," Bush said about Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a 24-year-old soldier killed in Iraq, who had camped outside the president's ranch asking for a meeting to hear her critical comments on the war. "I met with a lot of families. She doesn't represent the view of a lot of the families I have met with. And I'll continue to meet with families."
Later, Bush asked, "We've got somebody from Fox here, somebody told me?"
"Does the administration's goal -- I'll ask you about the Iraqi constitution. You said you're confident that it will honor the rights of women."
"Yes."
"If it's rooted in Islam, as it seems it will be -- is there still the possibility of honoring the rights of women?"
"I've talked to Condi, and there is not -- as I understand it, the way the constitution is written is that women have got rights, inherent rights recognized in the constitution, and that the constitution talks about, you know, not 'the religion,' but 'a religion.' Twenty-five percent of the assembly is going to be women, which is a -- is embedded in the constitution. OK. It's been a pleasure."
"What else are you going to do? Are you going to bike today?"
"I may bike today. Been on the phone all morning. Spent a little time with the CIA man this morning, catching up on the events of the world. And, as I said, I talked to Condi a couple of times. And tonight I'm going to be dining with the governor and the delegation from Idaho; spend a little quality time with the first lady here in this beautiful part of the world. May go for a bike ride."
"Fishing?"
"I don't know yet. I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm kind of hanging loose, as they say." With that, the questions ended and the vacation continued.
While Bush has allowed only abbreviated and controlled access for the press, he has been coddled by the Republican Congress, despite the spike in public disapproval of his conduct of the Iraq war.
In February 1966, Sen. J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, held the first hearings on the Vietnam War, which were televised nationally for six days. The public was riveted by the penetrating questioning of administration officials and the debates among the members of the committee. Fulbright had been a friend of President Lyndon Johnson for years. Johnson, after all, had been the Senate majority leader, and Fulbright was a fellow Southerner. But the escalation of the war and the absence of a clear strategy of resolution prompted Fulbright to call the hearings. He held additional hearings in August 1966, in October-November of 1967 and, when Richard Nixon became president, in April-May 1971 for 11 days. Fulbright believed that it was his constitutional duty to exercise oversight of the executive.
No similar Senate hearings on the origins, conduct and strategy of the Iraq war have been held. During the Johnson period, the Democrats controlled both chambers of the Congress. But Fulbright did not feel that partisan discipline under the whip of the White House was a higher principle than performing as a check and balance. Fulbright was a Democrat raising pointed questions about the policy of a Democratic president. But no Republican Senate chairman has seen fit to follow the Fulbright example. The one-party Republican rule of the Congress has resulted in the stifling of inquiry. Abandoning its powers and duties, the Republican Senate as a body refuses to hold the executive accountable.
The Democrats, suffering the debilities of the minority, are a congressional party without authority to initiate committee hearings. They cannot set an agenda or command television cameras. Their Republican colleagues have shunted them to the sidelines; the White House is deaf to their entreaties. Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, after fact-finding missions to Iraq, has offered numerous ideas to the administration, none of which have been accepted. Biden's good-faith effort at offering helpful practical advice has been ignored as though he had said nothing.
The opposition party cries in the wilderness. There is no specific policy on Iraq coming from the Democrats that the administration will heed other than blind support. It is impossible for the Democrats to be expected to arrive at answers to problems about which they, like the public, have been denied essential information. Why should Democrats produce polished answers when the administration won't or can't explain itself? Developing hard-and-fast positions on particular difficulties in Iraq will not make the White House hear them. The Democrats' greatest potential strength now is simply to ask questions.
