by Scott Creighton
In the Progressive/Liberal movements (Hillary can be Googled for the difference) there are many divisions in the ranks that split these camps and in so doing, fracture their combined strengths and weaken their respective calls for action. Differences based on ideological, economic, and even faith-based issues within the “party” are natural and healthy for a truly democratic process. Since there are way too many of these sticking points for any reasonable blogger to address in one article, I will focus on the one that is perhaps the most divisive and dangerous to our cause. This inconsistency is at the very root of our party’s paralysis and unless addressed soon, will insure not only our failure in 2008, but also it will pave the road directly to Iran. Interestingly, the rift is on something that most of the Progressives agree on, in principle; that the administration has produced legislation and Executive Orders that exceed the scope of their reach in so much as the founders of this country, and our form of constitutional democracy, saw fit to enable their offices with. The inner-party clash is over this administration’s intentions behind all of these actions.
Some in our ranks feel that the current administration’s incompetence is at the core of most of its efforts of concealment. They feel, for the most part, that “BushCo” is run primarily by ideologues whose agenda is more of a pre-requisite for the job than their abilities and therefore mistakes in planning and forethought have to be hidden or swept under the rug for fear of lawsuits and other recrimination. But that their intention is to protect this country from a dark and sinister force bent on destroying our very way of life.
This is a convenient myth and like most good myths has some basis in fact. It is true that ideologues have been recruited by the administration from various sources and with varying levels of expertise; but I feel the intent to hire them is not because they share some world view, but rather because staff members of this type are more easily mislead and tend to question the chain of command much less. And of course that very incompetence and lack of experience can be used as a last ditch effort to evade the accountability of those higher up in the chain of command.
The question of incompetence is hardly deniable. One only has to look at the background of many people put in charge of extraordinary responsibility within the structure of this administration to know that. But the ultimate question becomes why?
Part of the answer has already been pre-fed to the questioning masses via certain media outlets. Bush is completely loyal to his people. We have all heard this on various MSM news programs. They even go so far as to say he is “loyal to a fault”.
But that stands in contrast to his actions. How many “Commanders on the Ground” are no longer in command after breaking with the administrations “surge” strategy? What about Donald Rumsfeld? Colin Powell? Or any other of the number of CIA and other heads of departments that have gone by the wayside? Brownie?
It seems to me that once their usefulness has run its course, they get the obligatory pat on the back and Medal of Freedom and then it’s out the door they go, allowing for the press to come to their own conclusions about competence and fault.
There are so many opinions about how the “war” in Iraq has been managed and mismanaged that I can only say that here to is an example of either bad design or bad by design.
Incompetence or design? What is the intent?
Here in Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist, a republican, was elected on 2 main campaign promises. The first was to cap and then reduce the home owner’s insurance payments that are crippling the economy and forcing many citizens here to leave Florida. Though the promise of reduction was still ringing in people’s ears, Crist set out to pass a 25% reduction bill that would protect homeowners from the insurance lobby. It took him nearly a year and when it passed to great fanfare, in the end, the loopholes and increases for certain target range properties actually helped the insurance companies make more money last quarter than ever before. The reinsurance limits guaranteed by the State give greater protection to the companies and they stand to risk less in the event of disaster while, in most cases, charging the customers even more. So what was his intent?
The second of Crist’s promises as a response to the humiliation we all felt in 2000 and 2004 elections, was to bring a system wide election rehab with paper-trail creating balloting. It was a huge part of his campaign that made a lot of people here feel he could be trusted. Three weeks ago, the state quietly announced that due to budget restraints they would not be able to implement this program and indeed they ordered thousands of standard paper-less e-voting machines, just in time to get them set up before primaries and elections in 2008. An election in 2008 that promises to be very important to the course of action to be taken in Iraq. So, what is the intent here?
We all know what Rove said about a ‘permanent Republican majority’ and some of the actions with the fired US Attorneys that was part of the plan to see that thru. So much so that the Attorney General of the US has lied and avoided answering questions before a congressional hearing. Harriet Miers didn’t even show up. Subpoenas have been ignored at the request of the White House and Executive Privilege has been claimed even though the White House is not supposed to have been involved at all.
And what is the intent?
The list of these issues and examples of actions taken to thwart Legislative oversight is way to long for me to address them all; from Cheney’s refusal to release information kept by the Secret Service about who he met with before 9/11 to his creation of a new classification system; from the Patriot Act being dusted off and plopped on the desks of the legislators the night before signing to the Military Commissions Act suspending the writ of habeas corpus; from the declaration that Cheney’s position is the 4th branch of government to the Executive Privilege claim that freezes investigations into what the White House knew about the death of Pat Tillman before Bush’s recruitment drive speech.
Finally the very last example and perhaps the most troubling, is the administrations push toward war with Iraq.
Very few members of our ranks now deny that there was a concerted effort to cherry-pick intelligence as well as even fabrication of the evidence that convinced a people that war was necessary for the safety of its people.
The cover-ups and lies are being exposed and the administration is doing everything in its power to conceal and undermine all pertinent facts regarding this rush to war.
I know most liberals and progressives claim they were all against the war from the start, but I will tell you from experience that we were a minority even among our own ranks. Just ask Dennis Kucinich how easy it was to convince 140 Dems to vote against authorizing Bush to make war at his pleasure.
The sticking point back then was not that the story was changing; it was that this administration was pushing into Iraq under the mandate that this new democracy in the middle East would make us safer in the long run and that the effort to achieve it, though flawed, was based on Bush’s feeling of duty to the protection of this nation.
The conflict between us then was of the issue of intent.
Few now would argue that Bush had our best interests in mind in 2002 and 2003. We know there was something deeper and darker in mind. What have we learned from that process if we refuse to even discuss the possibility that Executive Orders and military build-ups and private security contractors may indeed be parts of a system that does not have the best interests of us citizens in mind?
Intention is the root of all crime. Without it, without proving it, there is only neglect, accident, and incompetence. Nothing can be more important to our cause right now. If we really want to see a VP and President Impeached; if we want our soldiers to come home and those bases removed from Iraq; if we don’t want to see our soldiers kicking in doors in Iran, then we have to begin to address in a diplomatic way, this riff between our houses. Because they aren’t going to wait for 2009 to invade Iran. And most of us know that, somewhere deep down inside.
All I suggest is that we start to address the taboo subjects that divide us and separate us from our true strength. We may be forced to see things we don’t like and we may be forced to give up notions that we have held for some time as gospel. Concessions will be made on both sides of the debate. But if we don’t begin to honestly search for the intentions that are driving this administration, how can we ask our representatives to?
The question is what is our intent.
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