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 here's
a lot of talk in Washington right now about unity — and particularly
about setting aside partisan squabbles. But plenty of divisions
lie just beneath the surface of this bland rhetoric.
Congress is
thick in discussion over granting war-powers authority to President
Bush through legislation. Some Democrats worry about giving too
much to Bush — they're warning against what they call "a
blank check." Of their many possible motives, one seems clear:
They're laying the foundation for future criticism of how the Bush
administration responds to the attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon. At some point such criticism won't seem as blatantly
unpatriotic as it would right now.
How much discretion
Congress grants the president is a matter of negotiation —
it can be moved in degrees one way or the other. Yet Bush should
not give away anything: He should demand the blank check, or something
very close to it, and dare Democrats to say no. Even members of
the House Anti-American Caucus will have a hard time voting against
what Bush requests.
This may hardly
seem like a time for politics. Yet politics grinds on. There's no
avoiding it in a democracy. Plenty of behind-the-scenes bartering
went into the composition of the resolution Congress already has
passed condemning the attacks. There will be more at stake when
the subject is presidential war authority. Now is a time for this
Republican administration to invest the Democrats as deeply as possible
in that authority, not only for its own good, but for the good of
the whole country.
Oh Canada!
Canadian journalist Gordon Sinclair's pro-American commentary from
1973 is making the rounds on the Internet, often without attribution
or any background information. The complete text of his editorial,
plus the context for it, may be read here.
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