Most people I know don’t care for winter that much. It’s cold, dark, and football season is nearly over.
I suspect many folks in and around the Executive Branch aren’t particularly excited or happy about the way this winter is developing either. Excitable, maybe; contented, I doubt.
From President Bush and cabinet members to mail room clerks (assuming mail rooms still exist), workers must be paying close attention to emerging events and asking what impact they will have on them. They know the President is hamstrung, but what about them?
It’s amazing what being away from the levers of power for 12 years can do. Talk about making up for lost time. The Democrats in Congress are moving fast, tackling every problem known and unknown to man and womankind, and taking no prisoners.
If scientists and world leaders had been working at this feverish pace for the past 12 years, they would have already solved Global Warming, installed an experimental moon colony from which regular vacation cruises to Mars are made, and figured out a way for the Chicago Cubs to win a World Series.
Look at what has been done in the first two weeks: the House of Representatives embarked on its First 100 Hours program and the Senate announced plans for a non-binding resolution against the President’s plan to ‘surge’ troops in Baghdad. Plus, the winter air is filled with threats of Congressional hearings about one thing or another with the likely result that our government will talk itself to death between now and the 2008 Presidential election season, which won’t be difficult as the campaign has already begun.
Last week I talked about 2007 being a busy year. I should amend that statement to include 2008, too.
Just read the newspapers, listen to radio, or stare addictively at cable TV. You would be hard-pressed to avoid the bombast. Everything that the Democratic Party wanted to do or didn’t want the Republican Party to do is now fair game. Watch out for the sound and fury. Strap on your seatbelt and keep your head low.
This incredible flurry of activity must subside soon. We humans can withstand only so much before we get exhausted, shut down, and seek quietude to recharge our batteries. Until then, however, we will be pushing the envelope.
Consider the landscape. President Bush announced Wednesday that his controversial wiretapping/domestic surveillance program would no longer be operated out of the National Security Agency but instead would be overseen by the special court established by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This was what many Democrats in Congress had been requesting for a while.
Assuming, as many pundits expect, the Senate resolution about Iraq troop levels passes (do I smell 2008 presidential politics in the air?), then we will be in a very intriguing circumstance. President Bush, operating essentially under a vote of no confidence, will be leading our forces into battle in a war that most Americans now don’t support, and must muster the courage to encourage military men and women and all other members of his Executive Branch to press on to complete the mission and achieve success, which the country no longer believes is possible.
Awkward, eh?
Whether you supported going into Iraq or not, recent developments (Baker-Hamilton Report, November election results, opinion polls) have shown that our country no longer has the steel heart to prosecute the war. The Fat Lady has sung, yet the players are still on the stage? Where do they go? What happens to them?
In traditional government and politics style, we will pursue both approaches – success and withdrawal – simultaneously. If you’re a bit skeptical about the viability of that strategy, ignore your qualms. This is just the way things are.
Unfortunately, thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, millions of civil servants and contractors, and tens of millions of Americans will be jerked through this obstacle course until our leaders can honestly and fairly debate and determine whether we are fish or fowl.
It’s said that holding two or more competing thoughts in one’s mind at the same time is a mark of mental dexterity and intellect. That may be, but it’s not good for public policy or government operations. Inertia is the usual result when such complicating factors exist.
There’s a column I could write about the motives and actions of the two major parties appearing to focus more on the 2008 election than 2007 problems, but there is neither time nor space to address that here.
Suffice it to say, we now know that 2007 and 2008 will not only be very busy years, but virtually impossible ones for Executive Branch employees as they search in vain for mission, clear direction and success.
My only hope is that I’m wrong.
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M.Ed.
Approximately 795 words.
© January, 2007