I remember when the then President of the United States had a sign on his desk that read "The Buck Stops Here". Harry Truman recognized that no matter who gave him information or how he obtained it, the final responsibility for acting on that information was his, and his alone. He did not rely on the doctrine of "plausible denial". The buck simply stopped there.
Now we have a President who acted on flawed and erroneous information. It seems likely that he knew the information was unreliable at best, but for whatever reasons, he used the WMD idea to defend the aggression against Iraq. Now his support staff are acknowledging that their information was wrong, wrong to the point of raising issues of criminal culpability. Why does the buck not stop with Bush?
Having made a major error that cost many lives, he can, of course, dump the blame on his staff, his support staff, CIA and the like. He undoubtedly will, having neither the integrity nor honor of Harry Truman. But. HE acted on that information. It seems clear that a more honorable course of action would be for him to resign. I would prefer to see him impeached with the potential of criminal charges being placed against him. A resignation, however, would restore at least a trace of honor and the remnants of dignity to an increasingly tarnished and tattered office.
Perhaps it is time to begin thinking of reorganizing the election process. The Electoral College system is certainly inequitable and no longer an appropriate means. A four-year term of office allows a President whose reputation and effectiveness are damaged beyond repair to stay in office, like a corpse in a wheelchair, for far too long. Perhaps we could have a system, like the English (in some ways) that would allow for a popular vote of no-confidence, that would require the current government to step down and new elections to be held. If we had such a procedure in place, how long do you think Bush would have been able to remain in office?
Time and past time to resign, Mr. Bush. The best thing you can do for the country, your party and yourself, is to leave office now.
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In the past you guys had a demented old actor (2 terms if I remember) as president, currently, some argue, a numbskull and in spite of this the US is doing business as usual.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me you overestimate (idealize?) the power they really have.
Interesting blog, btw, still reading through it.
cheers, DZJ
Since I'm a Libertarian, the "you guys" does not include me. And I might add he wasn't (apparently) demented while he was in office.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it's easy to overestimate the power of the President. Really the policies are largely determined by 1) Congress, and 2) the Cabinet. However, the doofus in office has the power to start an "undeclared" war. An interesting concept, that. I suspect an undeclared war is just about as fatal to a soldier as a declared one.
As I've said before, until the ballot has a box marked "None Of The Above" on it, it's pretty much an exercise in futility.
BTW, isn't it amazing how much smarter the Bush appeared during the debates, and how inadequate Gore seemed? How were we so misled?
When I said 'you guys' I meant folks from the US in general.
ReplyDeleteBeing from Europe, I'm not very knowledgeable of the various delineations of political nature you people have.
The question of who really is pulling the strings in politics isn't new. When you think of how many deals
these people strike on their way to that seat in parliament, how many favors they have to return... And god forbid you should criticize the system publicly. You'll get labeled an anarchist or a conspiracy theory nutter.
About political choices and such...There is a children's poem in my country, something most
parents teach their kids, about an old duck who one day strolled over to the bank of a pond
and gave a speech. A speech about how all creatures, big or small, should be respectful of each other,
live in harmony and so on. As he was talking, a small frog leaps closer to hear better and not
being able to resist the temptation, the duck gobbles it up. It rhymes and it's quite humorous.
The moral of the story, of course, is that one should be distrustful of politicians.
Now, you'd think that armed with such sound wisdom, a child would later in life be able to
define its own interests, vote accordingly and so on. But no, people still swallow their stories
hook, line and sinker. Go figure.