On the other hand, sometimes a problem is referred to a commission simply to get it off the table. Action is widely perceived as necessary, and the creation of a commission can be made to look like action.
So which is the Baker commission? It's got elements of both. Part of the idea, certainly, was to get the politicians over the hump of the election and give them something to say in the meantime. ("We desperately need new ideas and fresh thinking about Iraq and, indeed, the entire Middle East. I look forward to the recommendations of the Baker commission and urge them to interpret their mandate widely and boldly.") And part of the idea is to legitimize some impalatable solution. But the Baker commission may be nearly unique in that there is no obvious solution waiting to be imposed. People actually hope that it will come up with something that no one has thought of.
Good luck. The chance that this group of aging white men, plus Vernon Jordan and Sandra Day O'Connor, will come up with something original is not enormous. It's a nutty and not very attractive idea to turn an urgent issue of war and peace over to a commission. Commissions have usually been trotted out for long-run social problems: immigration, debt, health care. Going to war is something that ought to be decided by the people we elect. Congress, in recent decades, has virtually abandoned its duty under the Constitution to make the decisions about when American soldiers are sent to kill and die.
Presidents have foolishly claimed that authority. And now, inevitably, we have a president who is stuck with a war that he insisted on and a citizenry that has no interest in it.
If we had wanted our country to be run by James Baker, we had our chance. He was interested in running for president in 1996 but discovered that his interest in a James Baker presidency was not widely shared. Although he has held a variety of government posts, from undersecretary of commerce under Gerald Ford to secretary of state under Bush the Elder, and has all the trappings of enormous consequence and wisdom, such as a Presidential Medal of Freedom and his own James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, Baker is essentially a political operative. His place in history is Florida 2000, where he secured the presidency for George W. Bush. Reporters were awed by his brilliance and ruthlessness. History may be less admiring of his willingness to make inconsistent arguments and to lie with a straight face.
Being a Washington Wise Man does not require much wisdom. Baker has a "conviction," said a Baker colleague quoted in The Post on Sunday, "that Iraq is the central foreign policy issue confronting the United States." Wow. Now there's an insight. Actually, it is a nice small insight into the Baker mentality that he apparently can imagine a war that is killing large numbers of young Americans every month but that is not our central foreign policy issue. Baker also believes that "the only way to address that issue successfully is to first build a bipartisan consensus." Now, that is a conviction you can sink your teeth into. People like Baker always favor a bipartisan consensus.
They don't really believe in politics, which is to say they don't really believe in democracy.
The Baker-Carter commission on election 2004.
Even the 9/11 commission, while they made some good recommendations, let some important things slide.
Time for the Democrats to take charge. Pass the rest of Kerry-Feingold and get on with ending this illegal war and conducting the appropriate investigations.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
