Dear Congressperson,
I’m writing because I am concerned about the state of affairs in our country. The situation in Iraq captures the headlines, and it is indeed a horrendous situation that needs our attention, but it is not simply the crisis in Iraq but rather the crisis in the United States that we must address. Call me Chicken Little, but I think our democracy is in extreme peril. There is no time to lose in checking the erosion that has already significantly damaged the principles and institutions of our once proud nation.
President Bush and his administration have demonstrated time and again their utter disdain for democratic principles in making policy, they show repeatedly their contempt for the rule of law, and they reject out of hand the reasoned counsel of anyone, be it intelligence agencies, scientists, policy experts, bipartisan panels hired to make recommendations, and perhaps most significantly, the will of the American voters.
There is, of course, a certain amount of flexibility in our political system that forgives even transgressions such as those listed above. However, I believe when the sum of all Executive Branch misdemeanors over the past six years is added up, the challenge to our Constitutional system is unmistakable and grave. To fail to challenge this assault leaves our Constitution vulnerable to irreparable damage. The problem for leaders such as yourself is that it is difficult to judge when to stand up to such transgressions. After all, President Bush will be out of office in a matter of days (six hundred and some to go).
At this point, the problem is not President Bush himself so much as the erosion of our “sacred” democratic principles, the destruction of our whole system of governance that he has unleashed and we, by our inaction and tepid measures to counteract, sanction. What makes me feel that we as a country (and as a member of a community of nations) are in great peril is the recklessness with which President Bush pursues his policies even as evidence and wise counsel (most succinctly expressed in an op-ed in the Feb. 11 issue of the Washington Post by retired Lt. General William Odom) piles up that contradict and demonstrate the folly of his policies. A sober assessment of the Bush administration’s policies, especially but not limited to a close look at what they say and do about the situation in Iraq, can only be characterized as madness. And Iraq is but an illustration of how they approach all policy questions, from the economy to the environment to international affairs.
The president’s Iraq policies are truly insane. While the NIE, to which Bush has had unfettered access since long before the first time the words “surge” fell from his lips, expresses unequivocal disdain for the notion that our troops can effect a positive outcome in Baghdad much less Iraq as a whole, Bush pushes on with a policy that experts along with the American people have clearly said they don’t think will work and they don’t support it. Even more disturbing is how Bush seems bent on provoking Iran into war, an eventuality that none but the most deluded among us can think of as a good thing. Rather, much in the way the Iraq adventure appeared foolish from the outset, a military confrontation with Iran would be not just foolish but terribly destructive to our interests and contrary to our values. A sober assessment of Bush policies over the entire duration of his presidency shows the same pattern in every aspect of his governance. It is a pattern that is toxic to American democracy.
We can no longer look at Bush’s policies as a benign quirk of an odd man who happens to be our president. We can no longer see the broad front of assaults upon our cherished democratic values, against social equity and equanimity, against the rule of law, domestic and international, against the primacy of reason in governance, against the will of the majority as expressed in the vote and in Congress, as disparate transgressions. They must be seen for the complete set of rewritten values and principles that the Bush administration is imposing upon our nation, regardless of what we Americans would wish or vote. As such, I believe it is no longer tenable to approach this assault upon the most sacrosanct tenets of our nation employing the normal “collegial” approach to lawmaking and Congressional oversight. Congress must recognize the fundamental anti-democratic value system that informs practically every significant move made by the Bush Administration and act to counter it forcefully and without remorse.
Julius Caesar stood upon the banks of the Rubicon River and pondered his future. Not crossing the river was repugnant to Caesar because in staying, he would leave the fate of
Rome in the hands of incompetents. I think the US Congress (and the American public) stands at the banks of its own Rubicon. Would that the choices were clearer. Would that America’s dedication to the principles of democracy was more informed and more steadfast. Nevertheless, I feel there is a compelling need for dramatic action, if only to force the question into the limelight: Do we choose democracy, do we defend the principles upon which our nation was founded, or do we allow those principles to be watered down, abnegated, ignored at the whim and convenience of our supposed protectors? I, for one, am far more concerned about the anti-democratic forces in our government than I am about any threats from the Middle East.
The Executive Branch of the United States Government is currently demolishing our democratic system, unchecked by its bicameral counterweight in Congress, unless you consider non-binding resolutions and pledges to investigate malfeasance as some kind of meaningful response. I realize that politics is a slow game of chess-like moves and countermoves, drawn out by the chatter among the media heavyweights, as the public is invited to be confused about how to evaluate all this. I think it’s time to move beyond politics into heroics, some kind of high-stakes, make-it-or-break-it commitment to repulse this anti-democratic surge in our country. It’s not as if we need more evidence that high crimes and misdemeanors are being committed at the highest levels of government. From torture and utter disregard for the rule of law, to statements from the Attorney General dismissing habeas corpus and other foundational legal precepts, from corporate and CPA malfeasance to the strategic and international diplomatic nightmare that is now and has been since our first bombs fell in Iraq, from recent brazen politically-motivated replacements at top federal attorney positions to vote tampering to intelligence manipulation to lies and misrepresentations and malfeasance and bad-faith acts at every level, Congress increasingly looks like Nero fiddling over a conflagration.
Perhaps most disturbing of all to me is how President Bush appears literally deluded in his “new” strategy for Iraq. Is there anything more frightening than a violent madman with an unlimited arsenal?
Congress must find a way to reset the nation’s course toward a sensible and sane horizon, and I believe a business-as-usual approach is at this point tantamount to capitulation to the Executive’s plan for America. Indeed the current administration is taking full advantage of the ponderous pace of normal political discourse with an anti-democracy blitzkrieg that has outflanked all normal political safeguards, including, or perhaps especially, Congressional powers. As the President mounts his final, obviously doomed offensive in Iraq, preparing to waste lives and treasure for foolhardy reasons, while recklessly taunting Iran to join us on the battlefield, I can think of no more corrupt or morally bankrupt scenario in the history of our great nation, and the strategic outcomes that are likely to result from this truly insane scheme will drag at our heels for generations to come.
As my representative in Congress I urge you to take extraordinary action to counter this ongoing desecration of my democracy. The Bush Administration has changed the rules of play in government. For Congress to try to repel the Bush onslaught with “by the book” strategies would be as futile as throwing foreign soldiers into a roiling civil war. It is time for an innovative and fierce defense of our precious democratic principles before they are corrupted beyond repair.
Sincerely,
Ted Bucklin