2007-09-24

Did you watch the Sunday political talk shows?

I used to watch these more comprehensively than I do now, but I did take the time out to check on Senator Clinton in her appear on This Week; I was hoping for some fireworks between her and the host - as he was the former chief of staff to her husband and his renunciation of politics to become a journalist was a slap in the face to the former president.
No luck on that front, but it was a revealing interview nonetheless; no, not because of anything she said - no one goes on these shows to say anything - but because of a revealing implication from one particular exchange. I did not TiVo this episode as I had no expectations, but it went something like this:
George: If you really wanted the President to go to the UN and then come back to Congress before going off to war in Iraq, why did you not vote for the Levin Amendment that actually required that?
Hillary: blah blah blah . . . you will not hear many people say today that we should not have gone into Kosovo to end the genocide that was occurring, but at the time the Congress was controlled by people who chose to play political games instead of seeking to assist in the midst of that tragic event. I am still leering of an Executive ceding that authority and thus being unable to act in a similar scenario.
And there it is in a nutshell: Clinton - both husband and wife - believe in a strong executive. But not just that, in an executive who can commit US forces to war - without the explicit approval of Congress. This is the heart of what has gone wrong in this nation ever since WWII.
Remember that Roosevelt wanted to enter WWII, but he was denied by a Congress who would not declare war? Ever since that - starting with Truman - presidents have been seeking other avenues to bypass the explicit authority granted in the Constritution to the Congress to declare war. Truman used the UN, claiming that as the UN was created by a duly authorized treaty, our obligations to go to war in Korea were clear. Although as there was no declaration, Korea was known as then, and still is today, as a "police action". Vietnam continued this downward trend, with first Eisenhower sending in some "advisors", who were then expanded by Kennedy, which was then turned by LBJ into a fictitious act of war with the Gulf of Tonkin "incident". In fact, for all of the places around the world where troops have been deployed over the last 60-years, the last time Congress actually declared war was after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
We have reached the point where Congress is no longer even interested in declaring war, as that leaves their fingerprints at the scene and does not allow them to proclaim some level of (im)plausible deniability.
Which is the thin cloak in which Senator Clinton wrapped herself yesterday.
Her claims of being deceived by President Bush are as gossamer as a spider's web - and no less deadly. Unfortunately, her lies would be deadly to the average American citizen, who appears only as a pawn in these games betwixt the mighty.

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