Saturday, October 08, 2005
The Wrong Side of the Tracks
There must be a short in Karl Rove’s wiring. Cheney must need a new pacemaker. Bartlett must be out sick. Either this or Bush has just finally gone off the deep end. I can’t think of any other explanation. With approval ratings in the 30s what could possibly provoke Bush to sit himself on the ugly side of a political battle he will almost surely lose? This week the Senate passed the Defense Appropriations bill with an amendment to prohibit torturing POWs, detainees or any other ‘enemy combatant’ held in detention by the US. For months as this amendment floated around, Bush threatened to veto any Bill with this amendment. Even faced with the 90-9 vote in favor of the bill, he has yet to reconsider.
Bush is hobbling around the White House leaking political capital at every turn. He poured out capital nominating Bolton to the UN. He tripped and started gushing political capital from the still-healing wounds of his Social Security plan. Now he has positioned himself ideally for yet another political body blow. If he vetoes this bill, and the senate overturns him, he looks weak -- no, not weak, feeble. Since 90 Senators voted in favor of the bill the first time around, it is difficult to imagine that 31 of them will jump ship, reverse their opinion, and condone torture just to look like the lapdogs of this administration. With such overwhelming odds that his veto will fail, why is he still threatening it? Why not suck it up and save the political capital. Is he that set on torturing detainees? I hope not.
To boot, there are certain political arguments you don’t want to find yourself arguing, no matter how right they are. No one wants to argue that burning the American flag is good, but legislating against flag burning is a horrific abridgement of free speech and someone has to say so. Detainee torture, whether or not Bush thinks it’s morally right, is one of these issues. Does he really want to publicly state that he is in favor of torture? So much so that he will veto a necessary bill to state it?
America has been throwing its weight around for decades now, holding double standards and gushing hypocrisy. We criticize authoritarian regimes for killing and torturing their own citizens. What are we doing at Guantanamo and Abu Graib? We rail foreign leaders who don’t heed the overwhelming voice of their people. Well…. Bush continues on his own war path while 70% of the country disapproves. What are we doing? America is careening towards a fall. We simply cannot sustain this kind of arrogance in our foreign policy and survive as a world power. It’d time to start thinking about other people and their rights. We call ourselves the only superpower in the world. Perhaps we should remember that that term comes with responsibility as well as bragging rights.
Bush is hobbling around the White House leaking political capital at every turn. He poured out capital nominating Bolton to the UN. He tripped and started gushing political capital from the still-healing wounds of his Social Security plan. Now he has positioned himself ideally for yet another political body blow. If he vetoes this bill, and the senate overturns him, he looks weak -- no, not weak, feeble. Since 90 Senators voted in favor of the bill the first time around, it is difficult to imagine that 31 of them will jump ship, reverse their opinion, and condone torture just to look like the lapdogs of this administration. With such overwhelming odds that his veto will fail, why is he still threatening it? Why not suck it up and save the political capital. Is he that set on torturing detainees? I hope not.
To boot, there are certain political arguments you don’t want to find yourself arguing, no matter how right they are. No one wants to argue that burning the American flag is good, but legislating against flag burning is a horrific abridgement of free speech and someone has to say so. Detainee torture, whether or not Bush thinks it’s morally right, is one of these issues. Does he really want to publicly state that he is in favor of torture? So much so that he will veto a necessary bill to state it?
America has been throwing its weight around for decades now, holding double standards and gushing hypocrisy. We criticize authoritarian regimes for killing and torturing their own citizens. What are we doing at Guantanamo and Abu Graib? We rail foreign leaders who don’t heed the overwhelming voice of their people. Well…. Bush continues on his own war path while 70% of the country disapproves. What are we doing? America is careening towards a fall. We simply cannot sustain this kind of arrogance in our foreign policy and survive as a world power. It’d time to start thinking about other people and their rights. We call ourselves the only superpower in the world. Perhaps we should remember that that term comes with responsibility as well as bragging rights.
