Be a shame if anything happened to it.

Patrick already weighed in on the story of how the White House is using the threat of closing a military base to twist the arm of Senator Ben Nelson on the health care bill, but there are a few more layers to this onion which need to be peeled away. First of all, bare knuckle, hard ball politics is nothing new in Congress, and both parties resort to these tactics from time to time. Newt Gingrich was famous for it back in the day and was the poster child for the old maxim of how it’s better to be feared than respected when in a congressional leadership position. To a certain extent I can agree that there is a national security issue here, a case which was made both forcefully and persuasively by Ed Morrissey yesterday. But this is also a bit of an oversimplification. As commenter Wargamer pointed out in the previous thread, “bases can be moved.” Our military can set up the Strategic Command anywhere in the midwest they like. It would just take time and money.

The real problem with this particular weapon as it is being employed by Rahm Emanuel is the critical national and international importance of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process. This is a painful issue across the board which makes almost nobody happy, but it’s one which must be pursued. If we are to be truly serious about fiscal responsibility and cost cutting in the federal government, all slices of the pie must be on the table and, unfortunately, that includes our military budget. The good news is that modern technology has brought us the ability to deploy forces around the globe far more rapidly and efficiently than we could in the early parts of the 20th century. This same technology also allows us to conduct military exercises with less people and equipment than we could in the past. We can, and in fact must, shrink the military footprint around the globe, as well as at home, and operate a leaner, more efficient military.

But every step brings pain with it. Each base, at home and abroad, supports and employs a vast network of people, both military and civilian. When we close one, everyone howls because of the lost jobs and jarring impact on the local economy. When Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York got hit with the realignment orders in 1995, and then again in 2005, it was devastating to the local economy. General Electric had already shut down two of the three plants they formally operated in the area and the loss of Griffiss effectively turned the once booming region into a ghost town which is still rotting away with high unemployment and abandoned commercial properties to this day. Similarly, the threat of closing bases in other countries usually brings about an international diplomatic crisis.

So while it is a necessary evil, base closures are a deadly serious issue with far reaching implications not only to security, but the economy. It’s one thing to threaten a troublesome member of your caucus with a loss of cherished pork items or committee seats, but messing around with the BRAC process to force an unrelated domestic agenda item is really beyond the pale. The particular case of Ben Nelson also points out the inherent hypocrisy in this process. Have you ever noticed how, when somebody from the other party bucks their own leadership and “goes rogue” they are praised for their independent thinking and courage? But when it’s somebody in your own party, they are an obstructionist who needs to be punished? Welcome to Washington, D.C. I’ve seen smaller freak shows at Ringling Brothers.