The (Lost) Art of Compromise

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

            Edmund Burke, Irish-born English philosopher and political theorist

This past weekend, Speaker of the House John Boehner announced he was retiring from the Speakership and leaving a congressional career that spans a quarter of a century.  Members of Congress in general and the Republican Party specifically greeted the news with a certain amount of enthusiasm.  Mr. Boehner was seen as an obstacle to the absolutism that is championed by some politicians – mainly from the Tea Party wing.  Their lack of political maturity and understanding of their profession has caused undue stress among conservatives and in the process, has damaged the philosophy’s perception. 

This is not an article about Mr. Boehner or his legacy.  This is about the job of a representative.  This has more to do with a key ingredient to democracy.  Since the early days, the country has been a philosophical battleground of differing ideas based on differing perceptions and understandings of the Constitution.  As these groups have circled one another, trying to get one piece of legislation passed after another, they have accepted the notion that it is impractical and potentially destructive to try and get everything one wants. 

As George Will once said, democracy is the government of persuasion and insofar as that is true, it requires patience and compromise.  The absolutists in Congress today, with whom I largely agree, are following a policy of brinkmanship.  An all or nothing approach is rarely the right way to go about it.  There are only a few times in U.S. history where that was the case.  Mostly, representatives are tasked with struggling to create something out of the half-loaf. 

Whether the Congress and the Republican Party are any better off with the retirement of the Speaker is one for statesmen to argue.  Whether the country is better off with a contingent demanding that everything go their way simply because they are in a majority, I would say that is an unequivocal “no.”  Republican supporters throughout the country have seen various attempts by the party to muscle through legislation and fail miserably.  They have seen party attempts at forcing “doomsday” choices on the other party blow back in their face.  The reason it happens is because, in part, a failure to compromise. 

Compromise can be an ugly word.  Some seem to confuse it with appeasement.  These attitudes are heightened by people looking at Democrats – in Congress and in the White House – as a personal affront.  Democrats simply represent another, if not mistaken, view point.  To attempt to roll over them, thinking the most decisive victory is the best victory, is political immaturity. 

The American people can understand the notion of give and take as in the course of their relationships – at work, at school, at home.  What they do not understand, because few experience it, is steamrolling others with little to no regard.  With the art of compromise, one puts more pressure on the other side.  The attempt at rationality puts greater focus and more heat on the other side for an equal measure.  Additionally, compromise prevents the other side from a knee-jerk response.  Greater bipartisan support is possible for conservative ideas.

Discourse can be polemic and debates can be vigorous.  However, in the process of making laws and setting policy, the smarter play is compromise.  It is an art that is reserved for adults, reasonable and logical who understand the nature of man.  The art of persuasion requires one to understand others.  An all-or-nothing approach requires nothing but obdurateness.  It requires no thought, interaction, cooperation and, ultimately, no talent or intelligence.  It simply requires a disregard of all others who are not like you.  Conservatism is not like that and nor should politics.  It is not personal.  It is not about the individual but about the whole.

The New Chamberlain

At the onset of President Obama’s term in office, there seemed a desire to deal with Iran.  Throughout his presidency, Mr. Obama has sought a deal with the totalitarian state to inhibit through diplomacy its nuclear ambitions.  This might be seen as a continuation of the type of diplomacy that began under President Nixon to limit our adversaries’ nuclear capabilities.  However, previous agreements have been done from a position of strength.  The president, so anxious to get any deal done, has created the opposite and the Iranians are better for it.

For the Iranians, the biggest hurdle to overcome is the elimination of international sanctions that have been in place for so long that the Iranian economy’s decline is in an inverse relationship with civil unrest.  The Iranian leadership, exhibiting a dictatorial nature that they once bemoaned personified in the Shah, is cracking down on dissent while trying to turn the corner on their own Great Depression. 

Just as the Iranian government was left grasping for answers, they received a bit of salvation in a rather obliging deal with the U.S.  The fact that the Iranians are praising the deal while threatening to build nuclear weapons if anyone backs out should give the powers that be pause.  The Israelis are particular concern because their relationship with Iran is not diplomatic but pragmatic.  It is they who stand to face obliteration at the hands of a nuclear Iran.  While the president opines rhetorically, the Israelis are faced with a very real problem.  For Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is not a personal ambition but a national one given the results of recent elections that returned him to power.

The blithe sanguinity with which the president sees Iran’s compliance is thankfully not shared by the Congress.  The ball is now in their court to put some teeth back into this deal or nix it altogether.  Still, while Congress can frame the approach, it still lies with the president to act on it and Mr. Obama does not seem keen to do so.  With a naïveté reminiscent of President Jimmy Carter with the Russians and President Woodrow Wilson with the European Powers, President Obama is banking his entire approach on the “will of good men” in Iran.  Never mind that Iran has done nothing to give the impression that such men exist within its government, the president’s approach continues to hold the faith. 

I must admit that I admired initially the president’s willingness to speak to Iran.  He is right that nothing can be achieved without communication.  However, cock-eyed optimism is no way to deal with such an adversary.  There must be iron in our words and a willingness to lower the hammer if our interests are ignored.  We have taken on the responsibility to negotiate and the worst thing that we can do is to disregard our commitment to friends and regional peace by settling for anything at any price.  The president, in a way not unlike pre-World War II British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, has done just that.

The Republican To-Do List

The Republicans did quite well during the mid-term elections last month.  Large scale gains in the House, a Senate majority and a growing state governorship majority were just some of the gains struck by the GOP.  The Democrats’ fabricated “war on women” proved to be just that as two states elected their first female governor – both Republicans.  The party that does not care about black people elected three in various congressional elections (still others in state elections).  In short, for all the demagoguery and predictions of demise for the Republicans pontificated by Democrats and their like-minded talking heads in the media, conservative Americans proved as resilient and diverse as their party.  So, what should be the Republican strategy in 2015?

First, the Republican Party should busy itself on focusing on those issues where there is bi-partisan support.  Contrary to most people’s perceptions, there are issues upon which Democrats and Republicans can create a consensus.  First, despite the lame-duck Congress’ failed attempt the other week, the new Congress should focus on the passage of the pipeline that would connect Canada and the Gulf Coast.  The creation of jobs and growing energy sources would be a consistent source of employment and low energy costs.  

Additionally, both Republican and Democrat officials face the same pressure on the immigration issue.  Despite the president’s recent unilateral attempt at solving the problem, the Congress is in a strong position to one, enforce current immigration laws or force the president to do the same and two, take steps to greatly bolster the defense of the border.  The president thinks he can fix a home flood without first cutting off the water.  Congress can do much to fix that.  This is not a punitive measure against immigration and great pains must be made to ensure the move is not characterized as such.  We are a nation of immigrants and any attempts to discourage it would be, at the least, un-American.  However, the Congress could make significant steps to make our policies better, more streamlined and more humane.

Second, the Republicans need to make the argument that a dismissal of the U.S. Congress by the president is a dismissal of the American people.  Congressmen and women were designed to be the most responsive and accountable to the American people.  The president can say that he has no qualms about going over the heads of the Congress but in doing so, he is also going over the head of the American people.  The president’s attempt to act unilateral with executive orders is a tricky business.  In the past, some executive orders were a matter of procedure and protocol.  President Obama is making it a point of avoiding the legislative process, to avoid the judgment of the American people.  The Congress has power and authority and must fight to maintain it.

Third, the Republicans need to switch the conversation away from the president and towards a plan after 2016.  Beyond the aforementioned steps, the Republicans need to address a political reality that does not include Barack Obama.  In political terms, the president is a lame duck leader – one with no more elections to contest.  If he thought he was ignored by Democrats during the mid-terms last month, it will be worse in 2016.  Therefore, the Republicans have to address what lies ahead and in the interim, show that they can lead, they have ideas – and not ones that divide people as Hispanic or women or blacks but ones that unites us as Americans.  Such fragmentation is how the Democrats operate but conservatives and Republicans do not have to follow suit.  

In the past, national conservative ideas have seen us through economic turmoil (Ronald Reagan) and terrorism (George W. Bush).  On the state level, conservative governors have ushered in prosperous state economies that stands in stark contrast to the one directed by the president on a national level.  Conservative economic, foreign and social policies have appeals across the gender and racial divide.  Indeed, the core of conservatism is the champion of the individual – no matter who you are.  That would not be a bad message for a potential candidate in 2016. 

The Devil in the Details

When Richard Nixon was out of office and dealing with the aftermath of Watergate, he was interviewed by British talk-show host, David Frost.  The Englishman pressed Mr. Nixon on the issues and legalities pertaining to the scandal.  In a particularly tense moment, the president, out of frustration said, “When the president does it, it means it is not illegal.”  I was reminded of this quote when listening to Obama administration officials and other supporters of the president’s swap of a soldier for five terrorists.  President Obama’s actions seem either the personification of President Nixon’s hubris or naïveté. 

This is not a rejection of Bowe Bergdahl’s parents or even his home town.  They have one of their own back after five years and their happiness needs no explanation or excuse.  My concerns are with the administration, which at present is under attack by Republicans, Democrats and foreign heads of state over this trade.  I’m taken aback by the fact the administration seems surprised at the response.  This suggests one of two approaches to this trade.  Either the administration never fully thought it out and its consequences, assuming that rescuing a soldier five years in the enemy’s hands would be a no-brainer for public support or they did think it through and did not feel objections or the law were important.  So, we have either an incompetent government (suggested by many) or a corrupt one (also, suggested by many). 

First, there are legal and security concerns.  To my knowledge, there are no military or security experts suggesting this trade is without some possibly dangerous repercussions.  We have done what we have always said we would not do – negotiate with terrorists.  In the past, the trading of prisoners is done after the war, after a victor is declared and the defeated is cowed.  We have ended the war but the Taliban and their allies have not.  We are still targets and still the face on their wall with darts protruding from it.  This coterie of terrorists taken from Guantanamo have not given up the struggle and as soon as they can, will be back in the field with increased knowledge of the U.S. and increased anger.   

Additionally and according to the law, the Congress was to be informed of such dealings a month before it took place.  The administration said there was not enough time to inform the Congress.  If the Congress allows this violation to go unanswered, it is not just an institution that loses prestige, power and a voice.  It is us as citizens who lose prestige, power and a voice.  The Congress is our voice as the most representative body in the government.  A rejection of Congressional oversight and authority is a rejection of the public’s.  This is one reason why there is such bipartisan congressional anger against the deal.   

On the other hand, there is the question of Sergeant Bergdahl himself.  This man is not the bastion of fealty and honor that the administration has portrayed him to be.  According to his fellow soldiers, this man quit on his platoon, placed them in danger and is responsible for the men who died searching for him.  There is little sympathy for Sgt. Bergdahl.  While some say he should be court-martialed and perhaps jailed, I think he has suffered enough for his actions assuming he was just a prisoner and not a collaborator.  However, that will be of little comfort to the families of those who died.  I do not begrudge the Bergdahl family’s joy but that joy came at a cost.  Are we, as a country, willing to pay that? 

President Obama cannot be as toned deaf as he appears to be with these various scandals that have rocked his administration but with which he claims little connection, knowledge or culpability.  However, we have history and it teaches us what happens to people who claim to be above the law.  Some in Congress have uttered the “impeachment” word but that is ridiculous.  He is only doing what his supporters and allies in Congress are allowing him to do.  Yet, the consequences of these actions could be an emasculated legislature and endangered Americans overseas. 

Once More unto the Breach, Dear Friends

Shades of 1995 loom large as the congressional Republicans and a Democratic president face off over a question of the budget that has led to a government shutdown.  There must be a large institutional memory among both parties regarding how the last showdown turned out.  However, it is difficult to see this without conceding the Democrats refusal to negotiate.  It is a trend that began when the health care law was passed without a discussion or debate.  The House Republicans are trying to have some conversation about spending and debt but the Democrats, particularly in the Senate, refuse.  The Democrats are not seeking a solution. 

One of the Democratic talking points is that the Republicans are willing to hurt the average American by shutting down the government.  Meanwhile, the president has made a mantra, in between the ad hominem attacks, that he is willing to negotiate.  It has not been the experience of the congressional Republicans that the president is open to discussion.  If anything, the president is doubling-down on the rhetoric against his “ideologue” Republican opponents.  In addition to the president’s talking points, and much like what happened during the sequestration fiasco, the Democrats are seeking to make things as horrible as possible for the average American in order to convince the public the Republicans are irrational and mad.  Some newspapers took the administration to task earlier this year with regards to the disproportionate “pain” the Americans felt – particularly with the FAA, whose across-the-board minimal budget cuts (4%) turned into a delay of nearly half of all flights, according to the Wall Street Journal.     

Now, open air monuments are shut and privately funded parts of the National Park Service are ordered to close their doors.  Stern-faced administrative officials have hit the talk shows and issued flight safety warnings and national security concerns.  God forbid there should be a terrorist attack.  The administration will blame the Republicans.  Meanwhile, the non-ideologue president says he is willing to do anything to bring the government back into operation.  However, his Democratic compatriots view as outrageous the Republican effort to fund essential services of the government.  This led to a horribly unfortunate comment by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), where he incredulously asked why he would want to save a child with cancer (by agreeing to Republican efforts).  If you are dumbfounded, join the crowd; so were the reporters at the scene. 

I’m not sure it was the best idea to tie the question of public funding with the Affordable Care

Act by leveraging a possible shutdown of the government.  However, the dye is cast and the only way the Republicans can salvage the situation is if they can get some reduction in government spending or the national debt.  However, what began as a blunder by congressional Republicans is quickly becoming a telling moment for the president and the Democrats.  It should be known that my lovely bride is currently “enjoying” an unpaid vacation due to the shutdown.  My thoughts on the matter are not capricious rants.  However, if the Republicans can make some progress, it might be worth it.  The American people will see this and the nay-sayers who cast doubt about the Republican chances in 2014 might be overstating their point. 

The Hurried President

When I was growing up, my parents were always keen to tell me to slow down – “don’t eat so fast,” “you’re mowing the grass too quickly” and, my favorite, “you are trying to clean your room too fast, slow down and do it right.”  I was taught that if one wanted to do something right, one could not hurry through.  When the Founding Fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution, they purposefully created a system that would require an inordinate amount of time to get through bills or conclude other measures.  The fear was that if it were easier to enact legislation or amendments to the Constitution, emotionalism and reactionary impulses would determine the direction of the country.  The time spent would also allow the government to consider all options to avoid going blindly towards a “solution.”  President Obama is not adhering to the wisdom of those who constructed our government. 

In 1975, while prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi sought to jail her opponents.  At the time, she said, in her defense, that while an opposition was a necessity in a democratic system, democracy dictates that the opposition should allow the government to follow its programs since they were the ones elected.  President Obama, over the course of his time in office, has taken a similar point of view.  Over and again, he has attempted to rush through or otherwise avoid discussion over key points of legislation while chanting his personal mantra, “Pass it now.”  In the construction of his Affordable Care Act, the bill was constructed without much transparency and the bill was ultimately passed without a full investigation and discussion on its various components.  Constantly, the president bemoaned a process that insists on deliberation and discourse.  The Senate Democrats ran roughshod over Republican concerns which, by the way, represented the concern of a large portion of the population, and passed it with little consensus and even smaller comprehension. 

A couple of years ago, the president demanded that his job works program be instituted immediately.  His State of the Union Address was littered with repeated calls for passage.  I do not believe that the former constitutional lawyer is unaware of the function and design of Congress; I’m just not sure he is interested in the detail investigation of his policies.  It is his hope that that repeated incantations of the misery of the unemployed will force his opponents to simply rubber stamp his vision in a wave of emotionalism.  In more recent days, he is doing the same with the various programs introduced by Vice President Joe Biden to curb gun violence.  It is does not matter whether the programs and policies will work because that is not the point.  Rather, the show of action is meant to be enough to mollify those demanding substantive change.  A few weeks ago, his attempt last year to push through appointees to the National Labor Relation Board without Senate confirmation was slapped down by a federal court as unconstitutional and has highlighted a disregard for the law he once was entrusted with teaching and has wasted a year’s worth of efforts by the NLRB. 

Many of the president’s defenders will say that the obdurate nature of the Republicans is preventing anything from being done and the president is forced to try and end run around the Congress, where his opponents also include Democrats.  At the same time, the president is quick to point out that the Republicans should be working with Democrats though it is difficult to do that when, at the same time, he tries to circumvent them.  I’m sure neither President Obama nor his supporters are interested in my assessment of his legacy but much of it will be based on his tendency to attempt to strong-arm legislation through.  It is not a tactic worthy of man so knowledgeable of the Constitution nor is it in keeping with the finer traditions of democracy. 

This Story Shall the Good Man Teach His Son

I have this morning witnessed one of the most interesting scenes a free people can ever witness.  The changes of administration, which in every government and in every age have most generally been epochs of confusion, villainy and bloodshed, in this our happy country take place without any species of distraction, or disorder. 

            A Philadelphia woman in a letter to her sister on the occasion of Thomas

            Jefferson’s inauguration, 1801

It was March 4, 1801 and Thomas Jefferson, the tall and distinguished gentleman from Virginia left his residency of the last few months, a boarding house in Washington, D.C., to make his way to the Senate chamber.  The election he had only recently survived was a tumultuous and dirty campaign; one that would make modern-day campaigns seem quaint and genteel in comparison.  Jefferson’s followers had called his opponent, President John Adams, an atheist and suggested that he sought a re-uniting with England.  The Federalists were worse.  They called the Virginia politician “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father…”  On top of it all, the actual election was only recently resolved the month before after a contentious fight between Jefferson and Aaron Burr.  Yet, despite the hatred and the vitriolic nature of the debate, a country came together to honor a new president.  Not just a new president, but a new political philosophy – different from the two previous Federalist presidents. 

In accordance with congressional law, which states that a general election will be held every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, Americans will gather to vote for president.  The amazing part of the whole process is that on November 7 (hopefully), we will usher in either a new term or a new presidency.  Despite our convictions, our beliefs, we will accept the will of the people, as expressed in the vote cast next Tuesday.  For the last four years, President Obama has been my president and I have taken umbrage to those who disrespect the man.  No one, and that includes people like me and others who have criticized him over the years, has any idea what it is like to be president or the pressures that fall on that person.  Still, I hope that in a week’s time, we will have a new president.  I trust Mr. Romney’s vision for the future more than the president’s.  However, if the president is re-elected, my responsibility as an American is to accept him and respect him.   

There are those around the country who allow their viewpoints and paradigm to cloud their responsibility.  However, for the most part, I believe people do respect the office of the presidency and in that regard, we are unique.  It is not to say that other nations do not respect their leaders but they are seen in many places as more interchangeable.  Still, it is strange.  As a whole, we are a people who are known for its respect of its political leaders, its law enforcement agencies and as kids, we are told early and often to respect our elders.  Yet, we are a nation of individualists, who tend to be anti-authoritarian.  I’m fond of the scene in The Great Escape when the German commandant asks Steve McQueen’s character, “Are all American pilots so ill-mannered?”  McQueen responds, “Yep, about 99% of us.”  That is the United States but we still see our leaders and our president as different.  We don’t put him on a pedestal, or we shouldn’t…the president is not better than us but he can be the best of us.   

So, I anxiously await Tuesday.  I’m pulling with much enthusiasm for Governor Romney and think he has a good chance of winning.  His economic approach is more sound and more friendly for people like us trying to pull ourselves out of our economic blight.  His understanding of the U.S. position and role in the world is also more historically sound and ultimately, will make my country and the world safer.  And no matter what happens, my politically contradictory spouse and I will still be able to deal with one another (what to do with her yard sign though...hmm).  So will the United States.  It has been that way since the first men ascended to the position of president.

To Filibuster or Not to Filibuster

In an article for the Boston Globe, Joshua Green railed against the filibuster, a congressional procedural tactic of the minority party to prevent something coming up for a vote.  In his article, well written and occasionally humorous, Mr. Green details the many bills and measures that would have been passed were it not for the dreaded filibuster.  He further hammered the point that the Republicans have filibustered proposed legislation over 85 times.  However, his article is not entirely partisan and instead rests on the very nature of a filibuster.  He even quotes a University of Miami political professor (I normally call them pundits) who declared Congress was not functional any longer.  Here is a little history lesson – there has not been many moments in history when Congress operated the way Mr. Green romanticized it did. 

There are a couple of things to take from this article.  One, Congress was never meant to be a well-oiled, highly efficient body capable and often producing hundreds of laws a session.  It is designed to be cumbersome, time consuming and dysfunctional.  The House of Representatives was originally conceived as the people’s house, in much the same way as the House of Commons within the British Parliament was designed to represent the great unwashed, the hoi polloi if you will.  Representatives were given only two year terms.  This does two things.  One, it makes representatives more panicky and more likely to make decisions in a knee jerk response to immediately mollify their constituents.  Second, it allows the public to more quickly vote out or re-elect a representative, based on their legislative actions.  However, any political body that is directly answerable to the public must be counter-balanced, as it were.  Here is where the Senate comes in.

The Senate, prior to 1916, was not elected by the people but rather by the representatives of his/her state.  Senators serve six year terms and as such, are much more deliberate and exacting in their legislative output.  This was meant as a check on the sometimes impulsive nature of the Lower House.  The Senate, a more powerful form of the British House of Lords, was meant to prevent the government from going into directions that, upon further reflection, it would prefer not to go.  To do this, one thing that is missing from the Senate that is prominent in the House is the powerful Rules Committee.  In the House, the Rules Committee set up the guidelines of how a bill is argued, including how long debates will last.  The Senate does not have this committee in the way it is seen in the House.  Without the power of the House committee, the Senate can not easily put the brakes on the consideration of a bill.

The filibuster requires the majority party to have at least sixty votes to end the stalling technique.  This is called a cloture vote.  If the majority party can muster the votes, it can break the filibuster.  Mr. Green bemoaned all the things that did not happen because of an obdurate Republican minority in the Senate.  However, we are talking about things that had barely a majority support or, otherwise, a cloture vote would end the delay.  It also suggests that some of the opposition to much of what was filibustered was comprised of bi-partisan support, given the margin of defeat.  While we have a winner-take-all system in our government, we also fear the potential of a powerful majority.  

Many people take swipes at our Congress.  Mostly, it is against individual members of Congress, not necessarily their own elected members or the Congress as a whole.  Critics cry about the ineffectiveness of the Congress and often, advocates will champion a sad-sack case as representative of the damage being caused.  Yet, they miss the point all together.  Not only are the government in general and the Congress in particular not designed for the needs of the individual (it is responsible for the well-being of the whole), it is also not designed to blithely and thoughtlessly succumb to reactionary pressure.  To change the government or, worse, change the Constitution is a serious thing and must only be embarked upon after a most deliberate consideration.  It is the way Congress was meant to be.

To see the article referred to in this article, check out:

bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/05/17/taking-word/QrHaNvodpWOtRXy6bTKZ3M/story.html