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Posted April 6, 2004
The president is weathering all sorts of criticisms these days, but the most recent one doesn't make much sense.
The president, you see, isn't doing enough to push some of his legislative proposals through Congress. That's what some in Congress are saying, anyway.
Now, it's true that a few of George W. Bush's more newsworthy proposals — like sending men to Mars, or making sure men back here on Earth don't marry each other — are going nowhere. Unlike Medicare reform and tax cuts, these proposals have stalled.
So now Democrats say that this only proves that Bush merely wanted to score points at the polls, that he doesn't really care about the issues. Where is his work on anthrax protection? Why no help with his big immigration reform?
Things look worse for the gay marriage amendment and the Mission to Mars. Without the president's leadership, a few solons say, these things will flounder.
Well, boo-hoo. How great were these measures to start? Besides, if the president now relies on Congress to do its job — actually write and push through laws — that seems almost like horse sense. The president has other duties. Constitutionally prescribed duties. Being super-legislator isn't one of them.
By complaining about the president, Congress is trying not to take a stand. If the legislators don't want to make the effort to enact Bush's reforms, then just say so and move on. But if Bush's proposals are good ones, then they should stop whining and pass them. It's their job to push them through. After all, they are in Congress, Bush is not.
Of course, these comments rest on an appreciation of the U.S. Constitution, and on a rejection of the idea of the Imperial Presidency. Yes, I know: Most people these days — voters and congresspeople as well as presidential candidates — have little interest in the Constitution's specifications for limited government and separation of powers. We live in decadent times. Nearly everyone wants a Caesar.
The press, anyway, loves the current imperialism. It's so much easier to cover when one man makes all the difference.
And must accept all the blame.
Most of this is just laziness, however, laziness of mind and thought. Presidents don't control the economy, for instance, and shouldn't be blamed for every downturn. Or praised for every upturn. And yet the fiction goes on and on.
Even straight-talkin' Howard Dean rested his case for not cutting government services on the fact
that a Democratic administration would mean more productivity, and thus higher tax revenues, and thus no need to make any cuts. The fragility of the national weal — proved mightily by recent events, and by a downturn that began, after all, while the Democrats' beloved liar Bill Clinton was in office — suggests something very different. the fact that there was an opposing, Republican Congress during his years may have had something to do with America's prosperity. And that Alan Greenspan wanted to hang onto his job. And that something amazing was happening that no politician — not even Al Gore — could take credit for: the microcomputer revolution and the rapid evolution of the Internet. Yes, government policies have effects, good and ill, on the prosperity of cities and nations. And certainly some policies are better than others. But not only must we recognize that policy has many creators, it has many destroyers, too; and one cannot even count on the same policy having identical outcomes, for other things will not be equal.
In any case, Clinton wasn't solely (or even primarily) responsible for the Clinton boom,
and Bush isn't responsible, really, for the Bush Bust
— and not merely because the bust began under the previous presidency.
The world is complex. Politicians like to say this when they want voters to toe the line, but this truth has wider consequences. The world is complex, and the correct lesson to draw from this is that resting our hopes on one man makes less sense than resting them on equally nonsensical faiths, such as
good peoplein office is enough
Of course I'm not saying that some of these things (such as Christians, Hollywood stars, and good people) don't have their uses. I'm just saying that none of these are panaceas. And none can take the place of constitutionally balanced and limited government.
So this idea that Bush should prove every one of his convictions by endlessly negotiating with Congress is absurd. Go further: no one in their right mind should want that.
I'd rather the president mind his business. This includes listening to reports on foreign governments with a clear head and then telling Congress about the state of the union and its place in the world. And without spin, mind you, and with complete and utter honesty.
If the president did that, and let Congress take care of enacting and repealing laws, we'd all be better off.
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