Contempt for Congress

Sandy Levinson

The proposed creation by President Bush of a "bi-partisan commission," to be chaired by Robert Dole and Donna Shalala and charged with looking into the treatment of injured veterans, shold be recognized as the contemptible sham it is. There is no reason in the world to have such a commission to duplicate what Congress itself can do altogether well (especially because Congress has the subpoena power). Commissions are useful primarily--and perhaps exclusively--when there is good reason to believe that the normal political process is not operating, perhaps because of the volatility of the issue (social security, base closings) or because one simply doesn't trust Congress, for reasons of political party control, to be sufficiently vigilant in seeking out all relevant information (the 9/11 Commission). There is also justification for "expert" commissions dealing with controversial scientific issues, such as the pace of global warming. None of these conditions obtains with regard to how injured veterans should be treated. This is not a "third-rail" issue; indeed, both parties are united in their justified outrage over the disclosures. Nor, obviousy, does a Democratic Congress have any incentive to avert their eyes from recognizing that responsibility for the disgraceful treatment might be traceable to decisionmakers beyond the hapless generals who are currently being set up as the fall guys.

Instead, this is just another attempt by the Bush Administration to pick its own overseers. Robert Dole may be a genuine war hero, but he is also an octogenerian Republican Party loyalist who is unlikely to wish to make trouble for Mr. Bush (any more than the Schlesinger Commission, which investigated Abu Ghraib for the Pentagon and wrote a quite good report, was willing, when push came to shove, to bite the bullet and hold Donald Rumsfeld and his minions responsible for what happened there); Donna Shalala, so far as we know, is still a full-time president of a major university. Why didn't the President suggest former Sen. Max Cleland, a disabled veteran and former head of the Department of Veterans Affairs? After all, he has far more free time than President Shalala, not least because Republicans had had no compunction about savaging him during his bid for re-election to the Senate.

When last I checked, we still had a Congress of the United States that is charged with oversight of the Executive Branch, fully capable of holding hearings (all over the country), and drafting corrective legislation if such be needed. But, of course, the Bush Administration's motif has been to express utter contempt for Congress as a co-equal branch of government (save when it loyally does its Executive master's bidding, as with the rush to passage of the Military Commissions Act).

There is simply no need or excuse for this commission. Any of our tax dollars spent on it will simply be wasted. One might think that people purportedly obsessed with cutting "the fat" out of federal expenditures might hesitate to set up another absolutely useless commission. But not, of course, when such expenditures fit their own political agendas.

And, incidentally, we have 682 days remaining of the Bush-Cheney Administration.
Posted 9:09 AM by Sandy Levinson [link]