Legislating in Bizarro World

Consider the following purely hypothetical political scenario:

A lame duck president with an approval rating of 30% demands that a Congress controlled by the opposite party pass legislation retroactively immunizing an entire industry for any illegal conduct it "may" have participated in at the request of his administration over a period of at least six years. This president is unwilling to provide the public or Congress (other than a few members of the intelligence committees) with any specific information regarding the programs these companies are alleged to have participated in. Indeed, he won't even confirm that they assisted the government at all.

Given these facts, what are the odds that our hypothetical president would be able to convince Congress to give him the legislation he wants?

Had I been presented with this scenario a few years ago (or really anytime in my life prior to the last few months), I would have answered very quickly. I would have said "no chance in hell."

But for reasons I am at a loss to explain, Congress seems likely to capitulate to President Bush's demand that the telecom industry be retroactively immunized for any illegal activity it may have participated in at the request of his administration over the last six years. An intensely unpopular lame duck president is demanding something which is completely unreasonable and for which there is no obvious political downside to opposing, and the Democrats in Congress seem ready to acquiesce to his demands, without even knowing what conduct they are granting amnesty for. This is how the legislative process works in the bizarro world we've somehow managed to find ourselves in.

As Glenn points out today, in additional to Democratic fecklessness (particularly in the Senate), a big part of the problem here is the willingness of influential beltway pundits to simply accept the totally bizarre and unreasonable framing of this debate presented by the White House. Here, for instance, is the Washington Post editorial page today:

There is one major area of disagreement between the administration and House Democrats where we think the administration has the better of the argument: the question of whether telecommunications companies that provided information to the government without court orders should be given retroactive immunity from being sued. House Democrats are understandably reluctant to grant that wholesale protection without understanding exactly what conduct they are shielding, and the administration has balked at providing such information. But the telecommunications providers seem to us to have been acting as patriotic corporate citizens in a difficult and uncharted environment.

Now there's a solid argument if I've ever seen one. Neither we nor Congress know any of the relevant facts--and the administration won't give us that information--but we nevertheless support this sweeping grant of immunity because it really "seems to us" like these companies had good intentions.

Good grief. Here's a thought. Maybe the responsible thing to do is not to legislate blindly. And maybe a serious editorial page shouldn't adopt such a blasé attitude toward our legislative and judicial systems. We're talking about a statute that would instantly terminate a number of important lawsuits brought on behalf people who claim that their rights were violated. This legislation would not only prevent these people from having their day in court, it would likely ensure that these very important issues are never subjected to meaningful judicial review.

In serious pundit land, the administration's position--that Congress should grant amnesty to all telecom companies and instantly terminate all court cases without knowing any of the relevant underlying facts--is very sensible ("we think the administration has the better of the argument").

I know I often make this point, but can you even imagine what all the Sensible Pundits would be saying if the Clinton administration had tried to do something like this? They'd be tripping over themselves to declare, in the strongest terms possible, how totally unreasonable it is to demand that Congress legislate in the dark. And they'd be right!

Episodes like this, where the normal rules of politics seem not to apply, only reinforce my sense that past political precedents really aren't all that helpful in predicting or understanding the Bush presidency. The people currently in the White House are so willing to push the envelope, to do and say things that no one previously would have had the nerve to do or say, that they manage to shift the political debate into strange new realms where the normal rules don't seem to apply. In this strange new political universe in which we find ourselves, a painfully unpopular president can demand that a Congress controlled by the opposition party pass legislation that would grant amnesty to companies that assisted him in committing illegal activities and shield those activities from judicial review, and--without even knowing what those activities are--Congress will express a willingness to pass such a law and pundits will support it.

I don't understand this bizarro world and I can only hope that we'll someday return to a more familiar quadrant of the universe.