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| Has George Bush made America less democratic? |
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ANDREW C. McCARTHY
Contributor, National Review Online
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Posted 07.22.04 | 10:30 AM
Jon,
Nice Bluto reference!
Your three categories for measuring the democratic tendency are strategically chosen, not arbitrary in the ordinary sense of "capricious." I think your argument is not arbitrary but result-oriented, as opposed to fact-driven. You want to find Bush undemocratic so you have made discriminating choices about what facts to highlight; this has given rise to a few categorical boxes to present them in — effective because it gives the aura of bottom-up analysis instead of top-down polemic. Like your facts, though, your categories are valid but incomplete. One could easily conceive of others. "Responsiveness to public opinion," for example, would be akin to the metrics you chose, but then a circumstance like Bush acceding to the creation of the 9/11 Commission would hurt your argument.
That, however, is a quibble. My real quarrel is twofold. First: having set up this three-part analytical framework, you skew the inputs, which naturally skews the outputs. Second: I can't accept your premise that we should confine ourselves to discussing "means" to avoid what you presume would be a stalemate on "ends." This is impractical because your means are freighted with your ends. It is also inaccurate because I am not unprepared to be convinced that you are right; you simply haven't convinced me.
Your first category, an administration's openness to media and congressional inquiries, would be a more valuable metric if it were not transparently chosen for its strawman value. After all, you suggest Bush is not a reliable source regarding the time of day, so he's patently not an authority you'd actually turn to on something as central to your thesis as the very definition of "democracy." He is, instead, your rhetorical device. You've mined a speech of his for a statement about democracy couched in terms of media and congressional scrutiny. You then miniaturize these terms as if they meant only two things — press conferences and adviser testimony — and sock it to Bush because he is reticent about both. But, as you must know, these two inputs are woeful as a representation of actual information-furnishing by the executive branch.
A better barometer would analogize to the adequacy of cross-examination in a trial, which is governed by a venerable, objective test, rather than an off-hand, subjective remark: Was enough questioning permitted for the factfinder to make a discriminating appraisal of the testimony and its credibility? By such a standard, there's nothing undemocratic about the Bush administration. You fail to account for today's ubiquitous media and countless legislative bodies. Who cares whether Bush has any formal press conferences? He has frequent press availabilities and his underlings are interviewed all the time. Indeed, people on the Left and the Right are ballistic over a number of policy matters, not because we are in the dark but because we know what the policies are and we disagree.
You also don't account for politics. Clinton, a gifted advocate, should have had twice as many press conferences as Bush I. He had only half as many not because he was less democratic but because his scandals made that politically untenable. Bush II, who similarly governs in a closely divided country where a poor performance could have perilous political consequences, does not have Clinton's communicative skills and the media are more innately hostile to him, so he sensibly eschews the press conference forum. I haven't felt cheated by either president — as a voter, I've been quite confident I knew where they stood.
You have a legitimate point to make about testimony. Alas, you don't make it, and worse you obfuscate. You say Bush has declined to have "key officials testify" (emphasis added). In truth, innumerable key officials have been grilled by Congress and the 9/11 Commission. What Bush has occasionally resisted (although he has often caved) is testimony by members of his personal staff (e.g., Ridge before his position was enhanced to cabinet status, and Rice who is not a cabinet official but a personal adviser to the president), as well as the release of internal memoranda by executive branch advisers.
This is as it should be, and worth expanding on in light of your final question to me about executive privilege. Again, I have to take issue with your assumptions. The terms democracy and information furnishing are not, as you suggest, functional equivalents. Essential aspects of good constitutional democracy are respect for separation of powers and an environment in which constitutional actors can perform optimally. Thus, we don't want the FBI interviewing congressional staffers about policy discussions with their principals, we don't want the judiciary committees questioning Supreme Court law clerks about the give-and-take that resulted in a controversial decision, and we shouldn't want the president's personal advisers (as opposed to appointed officials over whom Congress has legitimate oversight authority) being interrogated. That isn't an ideological issue; it's a good governance issue.
Responsible agency officials should be questioned, as the Bush administration officials have extensively been questioned, on policy, its rationale, and its impact. What I oppose is advisers and their advice being scrutinized. That would lead inevitably to lots of mediocre (at best) counsel. Does that necessarily mean you and I get less information? Of course. Does it mean we have less democracy? No. Quantitatively, our information is almost the same, but qualitatively our democracy is far superior because the ingenuity of good advisers is not chilled while the information we do get is more relevant and reliable.
Another trial analogy may help. A prosecutor can conduct a very aggressive investigation, but certain matters are off-limits: defense strategy, attorney-client communications, compelled testimony from the defendant, etc. Similarly, defense counsel probes the government's case, but may not fish through files of marginal relevance or subpoena agents who expressed opinions but didn't make actual judgment calls. To be sure, the trial, as a "search for truth," gets less information, but due process is enhanced, the information placed before the jury is more reliable, and justice is served. As justice, like democracy, is what we are trying to promote, the system is better because carefully chosen categories of information are suppressed.
As I mentioned, you failed to make a point that would have helped your testimony argument (albeit at the expense of your media availability argument). Consistent with what I have just said, it would be much easier for me to defend Bush regarding the accessibility of Ridge and Rice if these advisers were not appearing on every media interview show in town. The privileged communications license I am talking about should not be used as an offensive political weapon — invoked or not at whim. If the president (or a congressman, or a judge) keeps an adviser as an adviser, that arrangement should be honored with confidentiality. But if the president sends his adviser out to answer Tim Russert's questions, then I think she should be available to legislative committees, too. A defendant doesn't get to give direct testimony and then go home. He is privileged to remain silent, but if he chooses to speak publicly he has to submit to vigorous cross-examination as well. That's an honest process.
As I have already gone on far too long, I'll too quickly address your last two categories. The first, suppression of politically inconvenient information, is a staple of all politicians, not just all presidents. Nodding to your good instinct about my Atta comment, I don't want a collateral argument about the salience of Clinton's particular lies or exaggerations. My point is that Clinton routinely dissembled (as far as I'm concerned), or put the best face on things (as his supporters would counter), about everything from when and whether the budget could be balanced, to the propriety of raising taxes, to his enthusiasm for meeting the terrorist threat, to his fidelity to campaign finance and sexual harassment laws, to Iraq policy, etc. You believe Bush is worse. I not only disagree (especially regarding the nexus between Iraq and 9/11), I don't think it's close. But that's neither here nor there. If the question is whether Bush has so unusually weaved information that we should pronounce him less democratic than, say, Clinton, I don't think he has.
Your reliance on the other category, misuse of government power for partisan purposes, is misplaced. Uncle Sam paid for me and a number of DOJ terrorism prosecutors to fly to Washington for an impressive Rose Garden extravaganza when Clinton (to his great credit) signed the 1996 antiterror legislation. Was some unnecessary government money expended in an election year so the president could get a residual political benefit? Did, and does, this sort of thing happen a lot? Sure. Does it mean the sky is falling? I hardly think so. It is a fact of our democratic life that incumbency is an advantage.
Like you, I'd like to see less politicizing of the public trust. But we're just coming off an administration that, for example, put the White House up for sale to fund its campaigns, used government privileges and personnel to hinder investigations into personal criminality, and transparently employed the pardon power to reward felons who helped it obstruct justice or were responsible for hefty political contributions. I really don't think the Medicare ads hold a candle to that sordid record.
All that said, your article is a thoughtful one on an important issue: the correlation between our constitutional democracy and the information (in terms of both scope and reliability) we should demand from the executive branch. You and I would draw the line in different places, but you are quite right to stress the need to draw it conscientiously if we are to have democracy worthy of the name.
Best regards,
Andy
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JONATHAN CHAIT
Senior Editor, The New Republic
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Posted 07.22.04 | 4:10 PM
Andy,
That was one heck of a long reply, but it seemed like you dealt with my argument in only a glancing manner. Let me reply to a few of your points.
In my piece I cited Bush, who defined a president's willingness to answer questions from the media and Congress as a key metric of democracy. (Which is true enough: One of the obvious differences between Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin is that the former takes a lot more tough questions from the media and the legislature than does the latter.) You dismiss this on the grounds that I ordinarily don't consider Bush reliable. I think the key concept here is admission against interest. When Bush says, for instance, that "by far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum," a bit of fact-checking is in order. When he admits an obvious truth that makes him look very bad, I would tend to believe him. Likewise, when Bill Clinton admitted his dalliance with Monica, you presumably believed him despite the fact that you consider him untrustworthy.
I described Bush's relationship with the media along a number of fronts. Limited press conferences was just one. You say he has "frequent press availabilities" and "his underlings are interviewed all the time." But the press availabilities provide no opportunity for sustained questioning and make it extraordinarily easy to dodge queries. As for the underlings, as I wrote, they brag about their refusal to answer questions. Getting to ask questions is nice, but getting an answer is the important thing.
Of course I never wrote that information furnishing is synonymous with democracy. It is, however, a key component. You make constitutional arguments about why it's desirable for various administration officials to refuse to testify before Congress. Leave that point aside. Whether or not it leads to better government, it's clearly less democratic. If the man who overseas tens of billions of dollars in spending can't be held accountable for how or why that money is spent, then it's harder for Congress or the voters to rationally evaluate those policies. All we can do is trust that the president is doing a good job. You may think that's how the system ought to work, but that's pretty clearly a less democratic arrangement.
Which brings me to the macro problem with your reply: You seem to equate "democratic" with "good" and "undemocratic" with "bad." So, when I describe a certain pattern of behavior by Bush as undemocratic, you defend it as good. Or you list some of the bad things Bill Clinton did.
In general, your attempts to show parallels between Clinton and Bush are unconvincing. I've shown how many of Bush's actions violate longstanding norms and materially weaken democratic governance. You've responded by dredging up Clinton actions that do neither. For instance, your recollection about how Clinton flew prosecutors to Washington for a Rose Garden ceremony hardly obviates my points about Bush's abuse of government power. Obviously presidents have the advantage of incumbency. I could have listed countless other ways that Bush takes advantage of incumbency (like having taxpayers pay for political trips) but I didn't, because they're routine. Spending taxpayer money to set up a presidential photo-op is routine. I confined my examples to things that Bush has done that have no previous parallel, except, in some cases, in the Nixon administration. And yes, as I wrote in my piece, all presidents spin. But you haven't produced an example of a Clinton policy that was achieved by withholding crucial data that would have undercut its rationale. I suspect that's because you can't — nor can you for Bush I, Reagan, and so on.
Likewise, you don't even attempt to show what your litany of Clinton-era abuses have to do with democracy. You seem only to be trying to establish that Clinton was bad. Well, I'm not trying to convince you that Clinton was good, or even that Bush is bad. That's why it's necessary to separate means from ends. It's possible to pursue a worthy end by illegitimate means. You can agree with most or all of Bush's policies and still concede that he's shown an unusual willingness to violate democratic norms and safeguards in order to achieve them.
Jon
Note: Jonathan Chait's response concludes this debate.
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CHAIT
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Posted 07.21.04 | 8:20 AM
Andy,
Thanks for taking the time to read my piece and add your thoughts. For those readers who haven't read the piece, let me briefly summarize it. I begin with the premise that democracy is a continuum, and argue that, while the United States is unquestionably still democratic, under Bush it has been somewhat less so.
I offer three basic categories of this administration's anti-democratic behavior. First is the administration's unwillingness to answer questions from the media and Congress. You say my categories are arbitrary, but in my article I quote George W. Bush himself defining democracy as a government where leaders must discuss their policies with the media and answer pointed questions from Congress. With regard to the media, Bush has held one-third as many solo press conferences as Clinton did through a similar timetable. More importantly, this administration brags about its unwillingness to answer reporters' questions. You may not have liked the answers offered by Clinton and his staff, but they did feel obligated to furnish them, as did every other modern president before the current one. As for Congress, I explain how Bush has repeatedly refused requests to have key officials testify before Congress. In 2002, to take one example, Congress appropriated tens of billions of dollars for homeland security, but was not allowed to exercise any oversight on how that money was spent. Even loyal Republicans believed that this unwillingness to be accountable to Congress was unprecedented.
Second, I described the administration's willingness to suppress politically inconvenient facts. Again, this isn't an arbitrary category: Democracy scholars unanimously believe that the democratic process requires a public that at least has a chance to acquire information relevant to important public policies. I offer many examples, but let me give just two. The administration knew the Medicare bill was estimated to cost $534 billion, but it suppressed that figure, because its House majority specifically depended on its promise to hold the line at $400 billion. Second, (and this is a slightly different thing, but just as disturbing) Bush officials sold the Iraq war by helping convince the public that Saddam was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Now, I supported the war. But you have to admit that democracy is not supposed to work this way. Americans supported the war against Hitler because they understood the danger of fascist aggression, not because they thought (with Bluto of Animal House) that the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
I argue that Bush is unique among modern presidents because misinformation, and the suppression of relevant facts, has been widespread and fundamental to his political strategy. You say Clinton did the same, and offer two examples. First, he lied about Monica. But the conservative argument about Monica is that perjury is inherently a serious crime, not that Clinton's affair was an important public policy. Then you call his claim that "the era of big government is over" a lie. I think it falls far short of a lie — government spending as a share of GDP did drop substantially, after all — but even if it was a lie, it's not the kind of lie I'm talking about. (Nor, for that matter, is Bush's claim to be a "compassionate conservative" who would moderate the partisan excesses of the GOP Congress.)
Finally, I discuss the various ways Bush has illegitimately used government power for partisan ends. Examples include using federal funds to promote his policies — i.e. government-funded ads touting the Medicare bill — and using declassification as a partisan cudgel. You suggest that Clinton did equivalent things. What are they?
You suggest it would be more interesting to argue, in essence, that center-left policies are inherently undemocratic. I could counter that concentrating enormous economic and political power in the hands of a wealthy elite is inherently less democratic. But, like your argument, that would be a non-starter. The only way people of different ideological perspectives can have a productive discussion on this topic is if they look at means, not ends. I'm arguing that even if you generally agree with Bush's ends, you ought to concede that his means have been distinctly undemocratic when compared with other modern presidents.
You conclude with a series of what I consider to be non sequiturs. In order: Bush acceded to the 9/11 Commission because of public opinion, not because Congress rolled him; I didn't realize you were one of the few bitter-enders who still believes in the Atta Prague meeting, but rather than contest the point I'll simply note it was ancillary to my argument; I quote a prominent conservative Republican bragging about the GOP's unwillingness to investigate Bush, so I don't see how the existence of a couple investigations refutes my general point; I didn't say the administration lacks any internal dissent at all — please explain what point of mine you're referencing and what you think it means.
Your last point, about executive privilege, suggests an interesting direction for our debate. Most of us gladly tolerate certain anti-democratic institutions, like the Federal Reserve or the Supreme Court. Do you believe our political system ought to be less democratic in general, and that Bush has therefore improved it?
Jon
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McCARTHY
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Posted 07.20.04 | 10:20 AM
Jon:
Thanks for the opportunity to discuss your provocative TNR cover article. While I don't buy your theory that President Bush is undemocratic, I commend you for a serious effort, dealing with the facts as you see them and building your case accordingly — a refreshing alternative to the familiar and frivolous indictments that devolve from the "he is evil incarnate" premise.
Many partisans who rabidly oppose Bush's policies will no doubt be prepared to conclude that he is undemocratic too, but your contention could really be made against any president: marshal the policies you think unpopular; come up with your own definitions of and metrics for "democracy"; draw lavish inferences of general hostility to democracy from a few carefully mined incidents that don't sensibly translate into anything so seismic; and, voila, the president is undemocratic.
President Clinton, for example, zestfully engaged in many of the same kinds of shenanigans of which you accuse Bush: serial lying to the American people about everything from "that woman" to "the era of big government" being "over," stonewalling congress, factitiously parsing questions he didn't wish to answer, making political use of executive agencies, and even holding, by your count, only about half as many press conferences as his predecessor. Did that all make Clinton undemocratic? I don't think so.
A more substantial case for anti-democracy (better, I think, than your procedure-oriented one against Bush) would explore the structural pillars of what was Clintonism and what would be a Kerry administration: a Leviathan in which liberty is progressively shrunk by executive orders, aggressive bureaucrats and federal judges, and in which other institutions insulated from the American voter — like the United Nations and international judicial tribunals — profoundly check U.S. policy. But I would hesitate to label such an administration as essentially anti-democratic. It would, instead, be one whose policies I opposed but had not succeeded in defeating democratically.
You raise some worthy points — I doubt there are many conservatives who would, for example, defend either the substance or the process that led to the Medicare bill, so it's especially astute of you to make that your cornerstone. But some of your most important charges are internally inconsistent (e.g., Bush firmly controls the Republican Congress yet somehow "failed" to stop the creation of the 9/11 Commission he so "fervently opposed"), and some are flatly wrong (e.g., the CIA has not determined that the Atta Prague meeting "never took place"; Valerie Plame and Abu Ghraib belie the notion of a reluctance to investigate the Bush administration; and Colin Powell — not to mention Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke — would be surprised at the suggestion that Bush enjoys an administration free of internal dissent). I also think much of what you perceive as anti-democratic (e.g., the reluctance to submit the president, his staff or internal DOJ memoranda to legislative or quasi-legislative committees) actually has the opposite effect, since a vibrant constitutional democracy depends on defending bedrock principles, such as separation of powers.
In any event, your thesis is real food for thought, and I look forward to talking about it over the next few days.
Best regards,
Andy McCarthy
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