alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

January 28, 2006

The Republican Democracy

by AltHippo @ 12:32 pm. Filed under Uncategorized

David Corn is mostly correct when he says:

Here’s the problem for the Democrats: they so botched the hearings–getting stuck in legal reeds rather than defining the Alito debate in broad, stark and dramatic terms that might resonate with the public beyond those already following the hearings–that they did not lay a foundation for an effective filibuster. There is substantive reason and justification for a filibuster–no lawmaker is compelled to vote for a justice whom he or she believes will undo important rights and make the nation worse off–but the political contours of the Alito nomination render such an effort mostly moot.

When I say “mostly correct,” I mean in the political calculation he’s right. But in the noetic sense, where real-world events are informed by principle he’s dead wrong.

After Alito was nominated I did my homework, and really believed that barring a compromising photograph of Alito with a lhassa apso, there was no way to stop his nomination. In the conventional sense, Alito is qualified to be a judge. Not my kind of guy, but clearly the kind of guy that plays in Missoula.

Over the last few weeks I’ve come to see what the implications of the Theory of the Unitary Executive are. If the spectacle of a potential fillibuster can bring a little light to what this means, then so much the better. Which is why I support what Kerry and Kennedy are doing, despite the political calculation.

The least surprising implication of the Unitary Executive is that it would make impeachment of a sitting president impossible. How, after all, could an act be considered a “High Crime and Misdemeanor” if the act is subject to the interpretation of the perpetrator of that act? The reason I say this shouldn’t be surprising, is that the notion of the Unitary Executive was created in the wake of Watergate so that Watergate would never be repeated. Nixon’s crimes could be repeated, but not the investigation of those crimes.

It’s not escaped many of us that the “War on Terrorism” has been defined in such a way as to make it a permanent war. If, as folks like Alberto Gonzales maintain, the President has sweeping “Commander-in-Chief” powers for the duration of this so-called “War” this turns the notion of a Democratic Republic into a Republican Democracy.

I’m afraid that what we have to look forward to is the conspiracy of Executive powers with one-party rule. Unfortunately, the Constitution does not begin with “We the Republican Party.”

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2 Responses to “The Republican Democracy”

  1. StealthBadger Says:
    January 28th, 2006 at 12:43 pm

    Huh!

    That’s an interesting take on it, similar to where I was approaching it from, but I was thinking that the Unitary Executive was a throwback to the halycon Federalist days of Adams and the Alien and Sedition acts.

    *does more research*

  2. AltHippo Says:
    January 28th, 2006 at 12:58 pm

    John Yoo, who was one of the architects of the Unitary Executive in the Reagan Justice department, has written a series of papers that attempt to backdate the idea to George Washington.

    Yoo, as far as I can tell, is like a character out of a lost Orwell novel. Kind of like the guy who has to constantly rewrite the news to keep up with the latest speech from Big Brother.

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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

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