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I Like It Better Already

They don’t really believe in politics, which is to say they don’t really believe in democracy. ~Michael Kinsley Kinsley is referring to the members of the Baker Commission.  We are supposed to cluck our tongues and shake our heads at these supposed anti-democrats for their elitism and consensus-building (are we supposed to prefer the rule […]

They don’t really believe in politics, which is to say they don’t really believe in democracy. ~Michael Kinsley

Kinsley is referring to the members of the Baker Commission.  We are supposed to cluck our tongues and shake our heads at these supposed anti-democrats for their elitism and consensus-building (are we supposed to prefer the rule of lunatic democratists who think that consensus and consent of the American people are for sissies?), yet every elected official of any importance has managed to be worse than worthless on Iraq. 

Everyone with any realistic hopes of higher office (this necessarily excludes Obama) supported Iraq in the first place.  You can spot an Iraq war opponent politician a mile away: he is probably either very new, or he is not a committee chairman and has no great influence in his respective party.

If we are forced to rely on a ridiculous commission of ex-bureaucrats, judges and time-servers for foreign policy insights, it is because we routinely elect fools and charlatans who have a pitiful understanding of foreign affairs and neglect the issues involved or who, worse yet, believe themselves to be well-versed on foreign policy when they are not (Joe Biden, this means you).  We have tolerated the emasculation and weakening of Congress’ role in foreign policy because we, the people, prefer “strength” and “resolve” and “toughness” that only the executive can provide.  We must suffer the bland blandishments of Jim Baker because we, the people, are rather stupid in our choice of leaders, and as a result we are made to endure the lectures of unelected commissions that try to do the job that our failed representatives could not bring themselves to do: think and reflect on issues of grave national importance and act in the best interests of the country. 

If we are in a position when Jim Baker is the best we have on hand (what a cruel fate), it is because our allegedly marvelous democracy failed years ago to do any of the things it is supposedly so good at doing: holding government to account, preventing aggressive war, checking excesses and so on.  It is rich to come crying at this point about the lack of respect the commissioners have for democracy when the entire apparatus of the elected branches of the federal government has already tried and failed to handle the question.  They have failed in no small part because they were democratically elected and because the quality of those elected was evidently rather dismal.  This will be no different in the new Congress.  The main difference in the next Congress is that some party antagonism may spur the mediocre wretches on to do the right thing in spite of themselves and in spite of their voters.  If the Baker Commission helps them to do this, so much the better.

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