This piece by Arthur Silber over at The Power of Narrative is a perfect example of all that I said about him yesterday. He is passionate, a wonderful writer, I sympathize yet cannot agree or endorse what he has to say. The title of this post sums up the way I feel when I read Arthur. I shall try to explain in what follows.
By way of general comments, I find Arthur's righteous rage inspiring, and his insistence on the necessity of basic justice almost unanswerable. I say almost because, in truth, we have to face some hard facts, regardless of our personal preferences. The same rage for moral order that underlies Arthur's argument also underlies those whom he finds abhorrent. As a source of political inspiration, anger only works if it morphs into something positive. Moral indignation, whether of the left or of the right, actually becomes tedious, even to those with whom one might share other political affinities. The absolute nature of the moral claims he makes, not just in this post but throughout his blog, are a mirror image of the religio-moral claims he insists are illusory. On what basis can he claim that his moral demands are real whereas those of conservatives are not? Reason? A slender read indeed to which to cling in the stormy world of political discourse.
As regards the question at issue - how to proceed in re the variety of potential scandals once the Democrats begin to actually do oversight - I shall begin by saying that, while I do not remember where I heard it, someone once said that "Politics is the are of the possible." As we move into the 110th Congress, we should remember that, no matter how necessary as a matter of law and moral preference, there are limits as to how far the Democrats can push an agenda of scandal against the Republicans. This is not to say that it should not be done, and that outright illegality should be ignored. Rather, I would say that the elections this past Tuesday were a mandate for action over inaction; the Democrats certainly have public support for legislating and oversight - it seems amazing that Congress would need an electoral mandate to do its job, but such are the times in which we live - and in doing these jobs, it seems likely that many nasty creatures shall scamper from underneath various rocks they overturn.
In other words, I am suggesting that, rather than jump in with both feet, proclaiming an agenda of reform, investigation, and rooting out corruption, the Democrats should go about doing what Congress does. As it does this, it should go about the task of building a case each time - with care and painstaking deliberateness. In other words, it should build a constituency, not against "corruption" in the abstract, but in each case as the allegations lead to facts which lead to legal action (either in court in Congress). This is no different than what prosecutors do across the country. They do not spend thousands of taxpayers dollars prosecuting street crime; assistants work on plea agreements. Even high-profile cases very often end in pleas bargain because, despite perceived guilt or innocence, legal procedure too often creates barriers to successful prosecution. The best cases, the biggest cases, have a constituency; it should be no different here.
Contrary to the subtitle of Arthur's post, I believe that it is in fact time for "politics as usual" because we have not had politics as usual for some time, for close to a decade (the growing hubris of Congressional Republicans really started when they held their majority even in the face of Clinton's popularity and re-election). We need to get back to Congressional hearings, discussion of boring, wonky, policy matters, the give and take of political bargaining, and real debate and discussion. We need to take our arguments away from the cable news shows and Sunday mornings and return them to where they belong - the floor of the House and the floor of the Senate (as a side note, while I believe some of it may be with us for a while, the co-ordination of the Republican message and its droning repetition by talk radio, Administration flacks, and Congressional Representative and Senators is, for the most part, a thing of the past). As some of the Democrats who will lead committees are among the most veteran and able legislators - Henry Waxman, Charles Rangel, John Conyers - I foresee substantive work being done over the next two years precisely because these are people who understand how to make laws, not just show up on television and talk.
As the Republican Party continues to implode, and as the Democratic Party seeks to more clearly define itself over the next two years going into the Presidential election, we shall be watching one of the greatest shows in American history. It will most likely include the prosecution of a variety of persons, both from Congress and the Executive, for high crimes and misdemeanors. Standing above it all in high moral dudgeon and insisting that things ought to be one way and not another because moral right demands it accomplishes nothing and sounds an awful lot like what the Republicans did throughout the 1990's.
