|
Edited on Sun Jul-18-04 02:50 PM by gulliver
There are a few weaknesses in our system that the reckless and unscrupulous can exploit. Witness what Bush and Rove have been doing. Their game is to look for vulnerabilities in the American political system. They then exploit the vulnerabilities and circumvent the safeguards.
It isn't genius by any stretch. It is the equivalent of letting your dog crap on a golf green. Anybody could do it, but only an ass would. Bush, Rove, Cheney et al are asses, not geniuses.
Even so, it looks like our system needs to have some sort of "Do not let your dog crap on the green" signs. In other words, we need laws to curtail the activity of the asses. Such a law, even if it were not put into effect, would be a good political weapon, IMO.
For example, suppose Kerry proposed a law that would make the "mistake" that occurred in invading Iraq "much less likely to happen." Kerry could propose a law that would better govern what America should do in a world where coalitions, the United Nations, and NATO complicate the declaration and prosecution of war.
The law might say that the president must use a two-step process before prosecuting a war (fast-track approval for negotiating with allies, followed by Congressional approval). The law might require that key members of both parties in Congress receive exactly the same information as the president and are entitled to task intelligence agencies for information. That would have let Levin, for example, ask the CIA to produce a report detailing doubts about Iraq's WMD.
I don't know exactly what would be in the law, but if Kerry proposed it, he could then use it to bludgeon Bush. "Do you support this law that would have prevented the mistake you made, Mr. Bush?"
|