Consistency is the Hobgoblin...

I’ve been pondering the personal dilemma dropped on me by that eminent wag, Steve Brennan of Ohio: how could I ever support the Democratic nominee for the president in 2008 after beating to death the argument that divided government is vitally important to the nation?

When this ethereal rag began its assault on the Republicans, my former party, all three elective power points – the presidency and both houses of congress – were firmly in the hands of the G.O.P. It was my constant thesis that the executive was grabbing power – excessively and well beyond both the norm and the constitutional limits – from the legislative and judicial branches.

In my last posting, I made light of the problem of divided government but in retrospect it is clearly more than the joke I made of it even though I’m still smarting from the entry wound where the dull blade of failed consistency entered my thorax.

A better answer to the wise guy would have included the word `balance’ as a major element. As blogging is a relatively new enterprise and since I’ve been at it only for a couple of years, my library of postings – forever recorded on the left of this page – goes back only to August 2004, but my friends and I have been debating the issue of division of power since at least the 1974 the constitutional crisis created by the behavior of President Nixon and his operatives in the Watergate scandal. Of course, the question has been one open to consideration and complaint since George Washington rode home to Mount Vernon.

The issue of divided government came up in the seventies when Nixon, as in the present situation, was perceived to have his party members in the Republican controlled congress under his thumb. The abuses of that period were so serious and notorious that Republicans in the congress turned on Nixon – as did even judges who had been appointed by Republican presidents – leading of course to the resignation of the president and criminal conviction of many of his closest associates.

The issue of presidential power enhancement was front and center at that time and among my earliest postings (August 2004) were discussions of the roles of my friends and me in the efforts to better coordinate the delivery of grants to state and local governments. There was also a posting on the minor role I played in the aftermath of Mr. Nixon’s resignation.

The bottom line is that while guilty of overzealous preaching on the benefits of and the need for divided government, my pleadings for such division cannot be made in a vacuum. We voters must balance the obvious benefits of divided government with the nature of the times, the likely tendencies toward abuse of power by one branch over the others, as well as the weight of the merits of the programs and the perceived talent, and character of the candidates. Even while admitting bias toward divided government this should not bind us to voting for a party or candidates whom we believe to be inferior in talent, character, or objectives.

For four years, I’ve been appalled by the preventive Iraq War and all of the abuses of power from the executive. (Surely a recitation of my many laments on these matters is not required here.) I have condemned the president and all of his advisors for leading us into this catastrophic blunder and decried the performance of the Republican congress that enabled the fiasco by failing miserably in its constitutional oversight responsibility.

My small role (I am taking full credit for 0.000001 percent of the responsibility for the Democratic victory in last week’s election – especially in the Virginia senate race, and I have friends who deserve far more.) in kicking the bums out gave me great pleasure and a feeling of successful activism.

It is the duty of voters to elect those who they believe will best further the interests of the United States and its republican form of government. To find myself turning away from a qualified Democrat presidential nominee only because the congress is in the hands of Democrats would be worse than irresponsible; it would be foolish. In 2008, it would be silly for me to vote for a neoconservative who was an aggressive enabler of President Bush’s efforts to remake the Middle East in our own likeness.

It is the role of the government of the United States to preserve protect and defend the people, the interests and the territory of the U.S. from all enemies foreign and domestic. That includes the belief that the government should act in the enlightened self interest of the nation by entering into alliances for collective security.

I remain in the camp of foreign policy realists and believe that the Iraq War represents the worst side of our government. Our government is duty bound to represent the interests of our people and nation and not high sounding ideals that lead us into traps such as Iraq.

Obviously, much of the rhetoric that got us into this mess was simply baloney. The grave mistake of preemption was made for more realistic reasons than those expressed. Clearly, if it were for purely altruistic purposes, we would already be fighting in places like Darfur.

The present administration and its many enablers in Congress have not yet been punished sufficiently for leading us into this horrible situation and for diverting our attention away from those who attacked our homeland. Should one of these enablers be nominated, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to vote for the Democratic nominee, the lesser problem – at this time – of division of government not withstanding. In fact, at this moment, my opening is that I’m going to have to be dissuaded from voting for the Democratic nominee.

So there, Ohio smart guy!

Blog on!

Wild Bill