Bloodless Coup

Nice post - even if it does remind me of the fact that I'll likely be depressed about American politics, no matter who's elected in '08, for years to come.

I think what's so depressing is that, for the most part, foreign policy was relatively bipartisan for most of the Cold War. Both sides made mistakes (Bay of Pigs, Vietnam for the Dems; supporting fundamentalists in Afghanistan in the 1980s as an example for the Reps), but by and large the whole "containment" thing worked out pretty well, and there was bipartisan support for the "peace dividend" that Clinton drew down the military in the 1990s for.

That's different now. Whether it's an ideological divide, or the post-cold war era has fractured the foreign policy bipartisanship, or some other reason, I no longer see any real consensus by both parties about direction, motives, or methods for US foreign policy. Hence, it's almost more depressing given that things used to be (more or less) reasonable on both sides.

Without getting into the "was Vietnam a mistake" debate, I'll simply note that while there had long been a great deal of agreement on fighting the Cold War and pushing for more open trade, regardless of who was president, there were still often disputes over tactics in that era.

Still, it did used to be somewhat different (though some of those fights got UGLY). So maybe the difference in the fights now is that more of them are over policy ends - and those types of fights might be more destructive. Or maybe it's due to the fact that at the moment there is next to no oversight from Congress. Or maybe it's that Bush and Cheney let the crazies loose in the West Wing, and all hell has broken loose because of that (as Holbrooke was just saying, presidents get the advice they deserve, and if they appoint loons to office, they get loony advice). That's sometimes what it looks like to me - and I think the lack of oversight, and the more deeply fractured space of policy disputes are among the reasons why deluded wackos with a plan have too often ruled the day in this presidency (in addition to the president's seeming love of blind loyalty and egregious mismanagement). So - the nature of the ideas and disputes, Congress' disinterest in doing its job, abysmal "management" from the White House, and a variety of personal characteristics of this president (you can add a hatred of critical thinking/discussions and, you know, reading to that list) have all come together to leave us with the mess we are in. Thankfully, at least some of those things can be changed over time. But of course there's no guarantee of that.

I don't disagree, necessarily, with any of that. The larger question is how much effect any of those variable have on the overall "craziness" of American foreign policy. In other words, we can (and likely at some point will) eject the NeoCons from the White House and thus the "loony" advice will decline. But if the bad foreign policy is more the result of lack of Congressional oversite or the change in the world (uncertainy of goals in the Post Cold War World?), well, then ejecting those advisors won't really help the overall problem. I suspect, actually, that the advice is only medium-responsible for the problems, and Congress can shoulder more of the blame. I'd like to belive that there is still a bipartisan consensus (excluding the NeoCons) about the roll of the US, and the goals of the US between say, Lugar and Biden (to pick only two big names).

this is recalling -- and i'm sure you read this armand -- a piece i just read in last month's atlantic pleading for a return to congressional declarations of war for all of the above reasons and more. i think it's interesting that the party of "originalism" refuses to recognize the mandate, unequivocal on the face of the document, that the most politically accountable branch shoulder the burden of deciding to send america's sons and daughters into battle.

granted, that was at a time where it was imagined that at least the house delegations would have lots of children in uniform in any such event, something that is considerably less common now, but even so -- a representative has his number called every two years, and that makes it hard to pretend he didn't make a decision that got a lot of kids killed in service of a dubious cause.