The Great Unmentionable

There's a long tradition in America--one reinforced by our prevailing journalistic norms--of seemingly reasonable people insisting, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Republican and Democratic politicians are equally guilty of deception and demagoguery. Those who wish to remain above the fray and avoid being labeled a partisan are quick to criticize both sides, even when one side is a far worse offender. Indeed, this rhetorical imbalance is 'The Great Unmentionable' in American politics today. Merely raising the issue is a surefire way to get labeled a partisan loon. And if you work for a major news organization, raising the issue at all, even internally, is a highly risky move.

In October 2004, as the Bush-Kerry presidential race was nearing the home stretch, ABC News Political Director Mark Halperin dared to broach the issue in a memo to his staff. He observed:

[T]he current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done. Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win. We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

At the time Halperin wrote this, the Bush/Cheney campaign was bombarding the airwaves with attack ads that badly mischaracterized Kerry's voting record, his past statements, and his positions on various issues. And by this point in the campaign, Bush's stump speech consisted of little more than a series of blatant misrepresentations about Kerry's positions on the major issues of the campaign. Kerry's ads and rhetoric, on the other hand--while just as harsh--seldom if ever relied on blatant misrepresentation.

But that didn't stop conservatives from shreiking "media bias" when Halperin's memo was leaked to the Drudge Report. It didn't matter that it was true (and quite obviously so). What mattered was that Halperin had dared to suggest that perhaps both parties weren't equal offenders when it came to the use of deceptive rhetoric. Given the storm the memo provoked, we can be pretty sure that no one of any consequence is going to raise this issue again anytime soon.

And that's a shame, because it really is the elephant in the room, and never more so than during the debate this week over the Military Commissions Act.

On Thursday, the Senate held a floor debate on the bill. Having watched a number of the speeches on C-Span (and Youtube) and having read through the official Senate Record of the debate, it's impossible not to notice what a profound difference there is between our two major political parties.

Don't get me wrong, there are all sorts of reasons to be critical of Democrats. They are often on the wrong side of policy debates (at least, in my humble opinion). And when they are on the right side, they all too often take the path of least resistance, refusing to fight the important fights or stand up for what they truly believe. But to their credit, they can usually be counted on to behave like adults and to take their jobs at least somewhat seriously. Anyone who watched the debate on Thursday had to notice that one side was trying to engage in a substantive, serious discussion of the merits of the proposed legislation, while the other side had absolutely no interest in doing so.

To give you a sense of the contrast, here's an excerpt from Sen. Barrack Obama's floor speech followed by excerpts from the speech of his Republican colleague, Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri.

Obama:

I may have only been in this body for a short while, but I am not naive to the political considerations that go along with many of the decisions we make here. I realize that soon, we will adjourn for the fall, and the campaigning will begin in earnest. And there will be 30-second attack ads and negative mail pieces, and we will be called everything from cut-and-run quitters to Defeatocrats to people who care more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans. And I know that the vote before us was specifically designed and timed to add more fuel to that fire.

And yet, while I know all of this, I'm still disappointed, and I'm still ashamed. Because what we're doing here today -- a debate over the fundamental human rights of the accused -- should be bigger than politics. This is serious. If this was a debate with obvious ideological differences -- heartfelt convictions that couldn't be settled by compromise -- I would understand. But it's not. All of us -- Democrats and Republicans -- want to do whatever it takes to track down terrorists and bring them to justice as swiftly as possible. All of us want to give our President every tool necessary to do this. And all of us were willing to do that in this bill. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to the American people. . . .

We could have fixed all of this in a way that allows us to detain and interrogate and try suspected terrorists while still protecting the accidentally accused from spending their lives locked away in Guantanamo Bay. Easily. This was not an either-or question.

Instead of allowing this President -- or any President -- to decide what does and does not constitute torture, we could have left the definition up to our own laws and to the Geneva Conventions . . .

Instead of detainees arriving at Guantanamo and facing a Combatant Status Review Tribunal that allows them no real chance to prove their innocence with evidence or a lawyer, we could have developed a real military system of justice that would sort out the suspected terrorists from the accidentally accused.

And instead of not just suspending, but eliminating, the right of habeas corpus -- the seven century-old right of individuals to challenge the terms of their own detention, we could have given the accused one chance -- one single chance -- to ask the government why they are being held and what they are being charged with.

But politics won today. Politics won. The Administration got its vote, and now it will have its victory lap, and now they will be able to go out on the campaign trail and tell the American people that they were the ones who were tough on the terrorists.

Now here's Bond:

These critics are not willing to do what is necessary to protect fully our families from terrorists.

You don't have to take my word for it, just look at their record over the last 5 years. Whether or not you would say terror war critics have a weak record on terror, they have certainly tried to block, slow down, and take away our terror fighting tools. . . .

What I oppose is how terror war critics would go soft on terror suspects, allowing them comforts they surely don't deserve. . . .

Article 72 of the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war says POWs shall be allowed to receive parcels containing foodstuffs. Is that what critics think the 9/11 Commission conspirators deserve? Cookie care packages?

Article 71 says POWs shall be allowed to send and receive letters and cards. Is that what opponents of the bill believe people who conspire to cut off our heads deserve--letters from home? "Mail call Ramzi bin al-Shibh.''

Article 60 requires us to grant all POWs monthly advances of pay. It even says how much: below sergeant, 8 Swiss francs; officers, 50 Swiss francs; generals, 75 Swiss francs. Do the critics think Khalid Sheik Mohammed deserves 50 Swiss francs or 75?

. . . What do critics think would happen if we went soft on terrorists? Would they be satisfied with only name, rank and serial number? Would they have us say to our terror suspects, "Oh gosh darn, I was so hoping you would willingly tell us your terror plots. Oh well, here's your 50 Swiss franc advance pay, don't eat too much from your cookie care package, we've scheduled a dentist appointment for you for Tuesday."

In case you had any doubt, yes, this is a ridiculous strawman argument. Only Common Article 3 of Geneva is relevant to al Qaeda, not the other provisions. No one is suggesting otherwise. Bond is just engaged in typical GOP clowning.

But this clown show is what our political discourse has become. This entire debate was a transparent political ploy. The Republican party intentionally threw its weight behind a bill so awful and un-American that any principled Democrat would have to vote against it. They voted down all amendments that might possibly make the bill slightly less awful and increase its odds of garnering bipartisan support. They didn't want a good bill, a constitutional bill, a bill consistent with American values and principles. They wanted a bad bill, a provocative bill, a bill just good enough to get Republicans to sign on (a very low bar) but sufficiently problematic to keep most Democrats from following suit. Come to think of it, that's pretty much been the Republican approach to legislating for years now.

And it's reached a point where crude straw man arguments and rank demagoguery have become the primary rhetorical tools of the Republican party. But, by alls means, let's continue pretending that both sides are equally to blame for the low quality of our political discourse.

UPDATE: Still not convinced? Well, the Republican Speaker of the House, Denny Hastert, told Fox News this week that the Democrats want to take “the 130 most treacherous people, probably in the world…and release them out in the public eventually.” Think Progress has the video. Now say what you want about the Democratic leadership, but do they ever engage is such blatant misrepresentation of their opponent's views? If you can think of an example, I'm all ears.