The debate in DC over whether and how to torture — I still find it painful to type those words — gripped the political establishment for a couple of weeks, and Dems on the Hill took an entirely passive approach. It wasn’t necessarily because they didn’t care, it was more part of a deliberate strategy: Republicans were beating each other up over the issue, and Dems decided not to help break up the fight.<\/p>\n
Whether that was a sound strategy or not is open to some debate. Now that the Three Stooges and the Bush White House have struck a “compromise,” of course, Dems, who have invested literally nothing in the discussion thus far, have to decide what to do about a critical moral, legal, and national security issue. Michael Froomkin set the stage<\/a> quite well:<\/p>\n The Democrats, having until now largely chosen to stay quiet on grounds of political expediency, now face a moral choice about how hard to fight the destruction of habeas corpus and the ratification of de facto unreviewable power to torture.<\/p>\n First option, block this horror<\/a> — filibuster if needed — and risk paying a political price: For a taste of the ‘vote for us or die<\/a>‘ campaign that’s in the works, see this utterly repulsive<\/a> ad already being run by Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-CT)<\/a>. And recall that Johnson is supposedly one of the nicer Republicans (and a new friend of Sen. Lieberman’s).<\/p>\n Second option, do the usual infective stuff and pay a different political price (the base will turn on you, as will anyone else with some decency). Plus earn a black spot in history.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Let’s flesh the details of these choices out a bit. I’m with Prof. Froomkin on the substance, but I’m willing to concede that competing voices within the party can make a compelling argument for either option. In fact, the Dems could raise quite a fuss in this debate if they choose to. A few good senators could simply read every quote Warner, McCain, and Graham made the last couple of weeks about protecting U.S. troops, moral standing, America’s values, etc. Maybe some Dems could track down Colin Powell, who’s been eerily quiet since the “deal” was announced, and some JAGs who recognize the “compromise” as a scam. In a nutshell, force a real debate about abuse, habeas corpus, abandoning the Geneva Conventions, after-the-fact immunity for war crimes, and an unjustified expansion of extra-constitutional presidential power. It may be out of fashion to stand up for American values, but that won’t change as long as Democrats stay silent.<\/p>\n Given that set-up, Door #2 may sound craven, but the argument is not entirely without merit. Dems didn’t engage in this debate because the rules were fixed in advance — with 44 seats in the Senate, they couldn’t win anyway. The best they could hope for is the three-headed “maverick” monster could keep Bush relatively in check. They didn’t, but that’s not the Dems’ fault; it’s the problem of having so few decent, principled Republicans left.<\/p>\n As this argument goes, Rove & Co. want nothing more than to see Dems filibuster a detainee policy, six weeks before the midterm elections, so there’s no reason to give them what they want, especially if it’s bound to fail. It’s not as if a sizable portion of the public is going to vote on this issue anyway. If Dems want to make a difference, create a check on an out-of-control executive, and stop a misguided agenda, they’ll need to start winning elections. Making it easier to label the party “weak on terror” isn’t the way to make that happen.<\/p>\n This may not be the morally superior tack, and it won’t win anyone any “Profiles in Courage” awards, but with 44 votes, we were going to lose anyway. From here, the key is to figure out how to lose with the least amount of political damage.<\/p>\n So, what say you? How badly have Dems screwed this up? And what, if anything, do they do now? Option 1: fight like hell, stick to principles, stand up for basic decency against the GOP onslaught. Option 2: sidestep unwinnable fight, embrace pragmatism, get ready to hit the GOP over Iraq for the next six weeks.<\/p>\n Discuss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The debate in DC over whether and how to torture — I still find it painful to type those words — gripped the political establishment for a couple of weeks, and Dems on the Hill took an entirely passive approach. It wasn’t necessarily because they didn’t care, it was more part of a deliberate strategy: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nThe first option has the benefit of the moral high ground, but a) isn’t politically pragmatic; and b) is probably the choice Republicans are hoping Dems will take. Nevertheless, Dems could show some backbone, take a firm stand on human rights, and filibuster the “compromise” on torture. They might also consider some carefully-crafted amendments that could offer nominal improvements to the bill, or, at a minimum, put a few Republicans in awkward positions.<\/p>\n