Pruning Shears

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

On Tuesday Prairie Weather linked to a post by Scott Horton on the Department of Justice (DOJ) and offered the following thought: “The response of the new DOJ to the growing evidence of Cheney’s high crimes and misdemeanors will tell us whether we’re right to wait for justice to catch up with our impatience.” Delay, though, seems to have become very popular in Washington lately.

Republicans have certainly fallen in love with it. While it is a time honored tradition for the minority party to try to slow the majority, an element of self-interest is missing now. In the Bush years many on the left wanted Democrats to push back harder against the erosion of civil liberties, for example, but instead they largely went along with it. Perhaps most infamously they farmed out (via) opposition to the Military Commissions Act (MCA) to a few Senate Republicans. There was at least a cold political case for that, though. The GOP had gained numbers in two straight cycles, including the historic 2002 midterms. Democrats may have sensed they were on the verge of irrelevance, unable to effectively counter Republican policies with their own or offer an alternative narrative to the GOP’s national security and business-friendly framing (feels like a long time ago, doesn’t it?) Dreading a third straight round of losses, Democrats could claim it was an unwinnable fight. (The moral dimension of that decision is another matter, and the subsequent elections suggest it may have been politically beneficial to oppose the MCA.)

In other words, they looked at the lay of the land and decided to go along. Similarly, conventional wisdom now suggests that Republicans should make some unhappy noises about Barack Obama’s proposals but let them pass. Maybe find a few issues to pick a fight over - judicial nominations always seem to be popular - and position themselves as unhappy but willing to acquiesce to a popular president’s agenda. If it succeeds, wait till the next cycle. Stay in the wings but also in the sight lines, and pounce when the Democrats suffer a few setbacks.

Instead they are acting as though they have a death wish. They have dragged out an election recount they are almost certain to lose and have promised to fight it to the bitter end. They filed a motion contesting an election when the polls were still open, prompting d-day to quip “Why not? It’s working for Norm Coleman. In fact, given that success I’d be surprised if Republicans acknowledge losing an election ever again.” They have engaged in unprecedented obstruction tactics. The result? They are wildly unpopular and losing support. Maybe this is just an Olympian temper tantrum, but it really does look like the party wants to commit suicide. Unfortunately, their problem is our problem. Minnesota has been denied full representation for months and New York’s 20th district might have the same problem soon. At some point it stops being about following the prescribed course all the way to the end and starts being about subverting the democratic process.

The president seems to be favoring the Big Stall as well. Horton writes the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility “has repeatedly disgraced itself and even in the handful of cases in which it has acted, the time it takes suggests that the guard dog has gone to sleep. (Look at the Yoo/Bybee probe, which is still incomplete after four years.)” (Emphasis in original.) The following day Marcy Wheeler noted some questions from Congress on that probe, and looked at delays in the DOJ Inspectors General’s report on warrantless wiretapping. Most disturbing of all is the continued radio silence of the new Justice personnel to the latest allegations of war crimes by senior Bush administration officials. The rationalizations for torture offered by them was described with refreshing candor by Dan Froomkin as “[a]ll lies and euphemisms”, yet the administration refuses to even bring the subject up. If enough of an outcry finally forces a response, it too may be slow walked to oblivion.

There is no quality of impatience in expecting close elections to be resolved in an expeditious manner or traditionally little-used parliamentary maneuvers to not be routinely invoked. Nor is it unreasonable to think investigations that should take months not be stretched into years. At its most pernicious, delaying strategies can have a profound human cost - but even in less urgent circumstances they can have a corrosive effect on public faith in government. It is not for us to exercise still more patience but for our leaders to stop frustrating the will of the people and the course of the law.