The 'War on Terrorism' Tightrope

Barack Obama is obsessed with bipartisanship.

That isn't an entirely bad thing. The George W. Bush years might not have been so bad if he and the Republicans in Congress had reached out more to their Democratic brethren, particularly the moderates. And, no doubt, it would make it easier to do the things that need to be done now if more Republicans were on board.

But, whichever party is in control of things — Democrats now, Republicans in the first half of this decade — eventually faces issues about which its members have strong feelings — and about which the opposition party has equally strong feelings. On both sides, it cuts to the core of what it means to be a Democrat or to be a Republican.

In those situations, the party that is in the majority has to abandon the desire for bipartisan support and keep its own members in line. The objective is to pass the legislation. If you happen to get a couple of votes from the other side, that's icing on the cake.

And that may be the kind of situation Democrats face now when the subject is investigating how the Bush administration waged the war on terrorism.

Given that a Democratic president may be in the position of authorizing an investigation into the administration of his Republican predecessor, Obama is understandably reluctant to pursue this. My gut tells me he waffles on some of these issues to stay on the good side of those who didn't vote for him last year.

But that's the wrong approach to take, considering that public opinion seems to favor some kind of review of the decisions that were made. It seems that this probe is going to happen, whether Obama supports it or not, and he risks alienating some who helped him win the presidency if he doesn't accommodate them.

Apparently, this "yes we can" movement doesn't rely on any one man, but it does depend on commitment to certain principles.

So what Obama needs to do is take the lead in structuring the investigation. And Jon Meacham provides some common–sense guidelines in Newsweek for that.

• No televised hearings, like we had during Watergate and again during Iran–Contra. Inevitably, somebody (maybe several somebodies) will give in to the temptation to grandstand.


• Don't pursue criminal charges "against officials at the highest levels — including the former president and the former vice president." I'm not so sure about that one, although I understand how it would look on the surface.
  
  I keep thinking about Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon about a month after Nixon resigned, and I think that Ford paid a high price for that pardon throughout his presidency. In hindsight, I understand his reasoning, but I don't think he did a good job of articulating it for the American people. If he had, his presidency might have been more successful.
  
  But Ford wasn't a gifted speaker; thus, he might have been better advised, at that time, to let the justice system run its course, no matter where it took us. Obama is a better speaker than Ford so he may be able to talk his way out of a lot of things, but if public opinion supports the prosecution of some former higher–ups, Obama may be powerless to resist the tide.


• Meacham argues that "[t]he idea that our only options are to move on completely or to prosecute is a classic false choice." He says an alternative is a 9/11 kind of commission that has a certain number of Bush sympathizers. That may be the closest that Obama can come to bipartisanship on this one.
  
  "We heard many similar arguments against the 9/11 Commission that we are now hearing about what we might call a 9/12 panel," Meacham writes, "but the 9/11 report was riveting and revealing, and we are better off for it. Why preemptively foreclose the possibility that a follow–up project would lead us even further forward?"

OK, I get that Obama would prefer not to do this right now. But he can't sidestep any criticism. And flip–flopping will only bring more criticism from both sides.

He also can't avoid an inevitable drop in his approval ratings. He has some (pardon the phrase) political capital to spare right now. He should be true to his principles yet avoid appearing meddlesome.

In other words, pick a side and stick with it. And then, whatever happens, don't interfere.

John Kass, a columnist for the libertarian/conservative–leaning Chicago Tribune, writes today that, contrary to the image of "flexible leader" that Obama has sought to project, "last week, he bowed to his base in the hard political left by reversing himself, opening the door for the prosecution of Bush Justice Department officials who helped develop harsh interrogation policies for suspected terrorists."

Kass says Obama "must stop campaigning someday and start thinking like a chief executive."

I agree — but part of being a good leader is being responsive to the desires of those being led.

And I believe the Ford experience shows there is a price to be paid for preventing the system from doing its job.