verging_on_random

Beyond satire

October 14, 2007 on 9:36 pm | In Uncategorized |

One of the most common observations made about the Bush Administration is the extent to which it has concentrated power in the executive government. Bush, Cheney and their cabinet members have conducted the affairs of the nation with scant reference to anybody else. Congress has been defied or ignored. Bill after bill presented for signature has been endorsed by Bush with a ’signing statement’, which amounts to a declaration that the President will interpret the law to mean whatever he wishes it to mean. Administration officials have refused to appear before Congress, or if they do appear they treat the proceedings with contempt. Judicial decisions have been ignored pending interminable appeals and promises to introduce new legislation. Bush has authorised invasive surveillance of US citizens’ private affairs and steered laws through Congress that allow citizens to be detained at the President’s pleasure. Worst of all, he has ignored the clear wishes of the American people and the Congress to end the occupation of Iraq, airily proclaiming that it is the President’s prerogative to make foreign policy. In the remaining months of his administration, Bush seems determined to commit his country to a war with Iran, despite overwhelming opposition from his fellow Americans.

In short, under the Bush administration the US presidency has become a law unto itself, exercising unprecedented power without accountability to anyone.

So it was staggering to read today that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has had the unbelievable gall to scold the Russians for allowing too much power to accrue to the presidency.

“In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development,” Rice told reporters after meeting with human-rights activists.

“I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma,” said Rice, referring to the Russian parliament.

How she could say all this with a straight face is beyond me, but I guess Condi’s never been known for her sense of humour. But let’s run it again with a few words changed:

“In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development,” Lavrov told reporters after meeting with human-rights activists.

“I think there is too much concentration of power in the White House. I have told the Americans that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Congress,” said Lavrov, referring to the American parliament.

Which passage rings truer, do you reckon? And if you’re having trouble making up your mind, remember that Vladimir Putin is seriously considering running for the Russian parliament after his term as president finishes. Presumably he doesn’t see the prime ministership as a powerless office. But it’s difficult to imagine Bush running for Congress in 2008, even if the constitution allowed it.

Moreover, imagine the offended outrage if a visiting foreign minister dared to address American ‘human rights activists’ in the terms in which Rice spoke to the Russians. The neo-cons would be apoplectic that anyone would be so impertinent. Yet none of them seems to have batted an eyelid at the thought of their own secretary of state lecturing another major power in such a patronising (and stupid) manner.

It’s incidents like this that make me despair of the USA. Its rulers from all sides seem to have swallowed their own bullshit about American exceptionalism so comprehensively that they are incapable of perceptive self-knowledge, or of seeing themselves as the rest of the world sees them.They appear destined to blunder from one contretemps to another, all the while patting themselves on the back for their unique virtue and whining about how misunderstood they are by the other 95% of the global population.

I like a lot of things about the USA but they have the smell of terminal self-destruction about them. It’s well past time for Australia to disentangle itself from the joined-at-the-hip relationship successive governments have got us into. Unfortunately, no matter which party wins on 24 November, I can’t see that disengagement starting any time soon.