Election Night 11/6/13 Yes, liberals are giddy. After eight years of Bush, and many more during which the very word "liberal" was considered slander, we gloat too much about our victories. We appear to wish death upon the GOP. In our less realistic moments, perhaps we do.
But we also know that a robust two-party system is vital to the integrity and effectiveness of the democracy. We know that the push-pull of different political orientations; the vigorous debate that must transpire to get at a truth; and the balance created by having a variety of viewpoints represented over time - those things comprise the genius of the great American experiment.
That is why the failure of the current Republican Party to offer intelligent and helpful debate is felt by some of us as a loss.
But we also know that a robust two-party system is vital to the integrity and effectiveness of the democracy. We know that the push-pull of different political orientations; the vigorous debate that must transpire to get at a truth; and the balance created by having a variety of viewpoints represented over time - those things comprise the genius of the great American experiment.
That is why the failure of the current Republican Party to offer intelligent and helpful debate is felt by some of us as a loss.
Liberals do feel giddy about this uniquely gifted president, his improbable success, and his ability to brilliantly, unapologetically promote bedrock liberal principles.
But contrary to popular conservative opinion, we don't worship President Obama. Governing is a human endeavor. We don’t expect or perceive perfection. It is a task too complex and critical to leave subject to the fallibility of one person's leadership, or to ask one party to shoulder alone.
At no time has everyone on the left been unified in evaluating the president's effectiveness or judgment. Even amongst ourselves we have a diversity of opinion on matters of national importance. We don’t have all the answers. So it’s actually a matter of unfairness for the entire Republican Party to get so bogged down in wound-licking and reactionary dogma that even its smartest members cede the voice of their party to the wing nuts. It isn't fair.
Gun violence is complicated. Poverty is complicated. Drone use is complicated. Questions about the ideal purview of government are complicated. Questions about the proper role of the Intelligence community in Defense endeavors are complicated. The modern economy is complicated.
So when particularly sobering problems emerge, forcing our giddiness to evaporate, even those of us on the left who are generally highly partisan and self-righteous about our ideas recognize the need for all hands on deck. It then becomes infuriating to see the disarray, shallowness, and nastiness that presently rule the GOP.
Gun violence is complicated. Poverty is complicated. Drone use is complicated. Questions about the ideal purview of government are complicated. Questions about the proper role of the Intelligence community in Defense endeavors are complicated. The modern economy is complicated.
So when particularly sobering problems emerge, forcing our giddiness to evaporate, even those of us on the left who are generally highly partisan and self-righteous about our ideas recognize the need for all hands on deck. It then becomes infuriating to see the disarray, shallowness, and nastiness that presently rule the GOP.
NBC reporter Michael Isiskoff On Monday, NBC investigative journalist Michael Isikoff broke the news about a memo that reveals the Obama administration’s communication failures and programmatic ambiguity regarding its use of drones to combat homeland security threats. Critical questions about how and when drones may be used against American citizens are unanswered.
Questions like, how exactly is it determined that an American citizen has become an enemy combatant? Would such a person have an opportunity to surrender before being assassinated? Can such a person be killed on American soil? As Isikoff pointed out Monday evening on The Rachel Maddow Show, the administration has been effectively unable to say that current guidelines don’t allow for an American citizen, living in a US city, to be killed in bed at night by government operatives. But because what passes on the right these days for reason is actually a paranoid, lunatic fringe-type thinking, we can’t have a real discussion about it.
Questions like, how exactly is it determined that an American citizen has become an enemy combatant? Would such a person have an opportunity to surrender before being assassinated? Can such a person be killed on American soil? As Isikoff pointed out Monday evening on The Rachel Maddow Show, the administration has been effectively unable to say that current guidelines don’t allow for an American citizen, living in a US city, to be killed in bed at night by government operatives. But because what passes on the right these days for reason is actually a paranoid, lunatic fringe-type thinking, we can’t have a real discussion about it.
The most obstinate partisan must acknowledge the fact that no matter how much you trust the people in power now, within a few years the people in power will be a whole new group of folks, with the same power.
I have tremendous faith in this administration. I trust Barack Obama. But participatory government is our duty in this country, so we should ask these questions, and they should answer. No administration can get everything right. I believe the President when I hear him express his intent to improve the transparency and codification of these processes. I believe him when he describes the challenge of managing on-going and imminent threats while simultaneously trying to draft publicly vetted rules of engagement for a frontier mode of defense. (A mode of defense that, in my mind, has great promise as a tool to help us delay or avoid full-scale war.)
I have tremendous faith in this administration. I trust Barack Obama. But participatory government is our duty in this country, so we should ask these questions, and they should answer. No administration can get everything right. I believe the President when I hear him express his intent to improve the transparency and codification of these processes. I believe him when he describes the challenge of managing on-going and imminent threats while simultaneously trying to draft publicly vetted rules of engagement for a frontier mode of defense. (A mode of defense that, in my mind, has great promise as a tool to help us delay or avoid full-scale war.)
| Vigorous debate on this subject has occurred on the left. Some of us are puritanical pacifists, deeply opposed to drone use on principle. Some of us have taken on, to our own surprise, a pragmatic hawkishness, feeling that drones may be evil compared to no drones, but they are downright benevolent compared to full-scale air raids and ground invasions. |  MQ-9 Reaper Drone |
I have found it hard to broach this topic outside liberal zones, in politically-mixed groups. I am stopped by a feeling of protectiveness about the President that springs from the relentless, unwarranted, vindictive scrutiny of him by the right. I'm not talking about the honest pressure for transparency and ethical rigor that can and should come from an opposition truly loyal to the cause of democracy. That kind of pressure is good. That kind of pressure is what we need.
 | I’m talking about a scrutiny wherein vast swaths of a party's most vocal members hijack an entire 24-hour news cycle to explore whether the barrel of a skeet rifle held by the president looks authentic or photo-shopped. I’m talking about a party that reelects members to Congress who use perfectly good congressional floor time to question whether this president was born in the US, or whether he is a secret Socialist, or whether there are people in his State Department with nefarious ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. |
A party that has allowed high-ranking members to go uncensured for meeting the very night of Mr. Obama’s first inauguration to strategize ways to oppose him at every turn, including voting against his favored legislation even if it is in sync with their own positions. A party still represented by both elected and unelected officials who openly, repeatedly vowed during his first term to put the welfare of the republic at temporary risk if it helped the cause of "making Obama a one term president." A party that recently reelected a national chair who claimed during his first tenure that Obama's presidency would cause "an end to our way of life in America."
These examples illustrate the hyper-critical and one-dimensional Republican view of Mr. Obama; they don’t even touch on all the other Stupid Republican Tricks that expose a readiness to abandon our time-tested system of judiciously prosecuting policy proposals. Tricks like putting creationists on the House Science Committee, proffering "self-deportation" as a legitimate immigration reform device, employing a willful misinterpretation of the "you didn't build that" Obama campaign quote as a major campaign theme, or deeming the taunting of Iran a useful foreign policy approach.
These doings, along with many others, all demand that countless hours of pointless, inane, mental energy be spent on faux issues or backwards policies while pressing problems are at hand.
Shouldn't thoughtful criticism be the responsibility of everyone?
Yes, citizen members of the party in power should be expected to push themselves to critique and challenge their chosen administrations, publicly and forcefully. But we should also be able to rely on the opposition party to be constructively skeptical and civilly unsympathetic.
Republicans. Pull your selves together. We need your help on this drone thing.
These doings, along with many others, all demand that countless hours of pointless, inane, mental energy be spent on faux issues or backwards policies while pressing problems are at hand.
Shouldn't thoughtful criticism be the responsibility of everyone?
Yes, citizen members of the party in power should be expected to push themselves to critique and challenge their chosen administrations, publicly and forcefully. But we should also be able to rely on the opposition party to be constructively skeptical and civilly unsympathetic.
Republicans. Pull your selves together. We need your help on this drone thing.
