Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has just made it harder for the White House and GOP strategists to suggest that only partisan Democrats oppose President George Bush’s terrorist interrogation plan:
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday endorsed efforts by three Republican senators to block President Bush’s plan to authorize harsh interrogations of terror suspects.
The latest sign of GOP division over White House security policy came in a statement that Powell sent to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the rebellious lawmakers. Powell said that Congress must not pass Bush’s proposal to redefine U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions, a treaty that sets international standards for the treatment of prisoners of war.
This development accompanied Bush’s visit to Capitol Hill, where he conferred behind closed doors with House Republicans. His would narrow the U.S. legal interpretation of the treaty in a bid to allow tougher interrogations and shield U.S. personnel from being prosecuted for war crimes.
“The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,� said Powell, who served under Bush and is a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.�
Republican dissatisfaction with the administration’s security proposals is becoming more prominent as the midterm election season has arrived. The Bush White House wants Congress to approve greater executive power to spy on, imprison and interrogate terrorism suspects.
This now poses several problems for Bush, Karl Rove and others who reportedly sought to press this issue right before the mid-term elections so Democrats would be put on the spot and forced to choose and perhaps be politically set up as being soft on national security issues.
Powell and McCain are perhaps two of the most well-known and nationally recognized symbols of former military men in public life. Their opposition to this plan lends credence to other critics’ arguments against it. In news cycles it now becomes clear that there is bipartisan opposition to the plan.
The Democrats now can be outspoken but let the prominent opposing GOPers — all of whom have strong traditional credentials on military matters — take the lead. This will not prevent a political campaign motif that Democats want to cut and run, would make the country unsafe, etc. But it’s going to be harder for the argument to be sold to independent voters — and to traditional conservatives who are already at odds with this administration.
But a key problem the Bush administration faces is this: it’s POLITICAL problems are profound and of its own making. Bush — and the administration’s — style has not been to seek “advise and consent” from or even work in perfunctory partnership with Congress, which is controlled by the GOP. It has been to decree what it wants, take the powers it wants, then present it to Congress and have Congress ratify it.
Basic PoliSci 101 skills of political fence-mending and VIP nurturing have been lacking and will likely be a major topic for future historians when they look at the Bush administration. In fact, in terms of skillful political bridge-building, the Bush administration increasingly resembles the Carter administration more than the more politically-astute Nixon or Reagan administrations.
UPDATE 1: The White House Response to Powell: he is “confused.” Editor & Publisher:
Tony Snow conducted one of his most fascinating briefings today in his relatively short time as White House press secretary.
Most of it had to do with the administration’s attempt to redefine — or as it claims, simply make clearer — certain key parts of the Geneva Convention’s rules on torture and interrogation. In the course of it, Snow charged that former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had just written a letter critical of this move, was “confused” about the matter, and several key GOP senators, including John McCain, similarly not on the right path.
It seemed reasonable enough — if one can ignore the fact that the Geneva prohibitions have lasted almost 60 years without others feeling a crying need to clarify or re-define them, perhaps because doing so, critics charge, opens it up for everyone else, including some really bad guys, to come up with their own standards, endangering our captured soldiers.
Snow said the issue had never “come up” before. Does this mean we never tried to raise the questions before because we had never felt an urge to torture previously? Or what?
UPDATE II:
Bush just had a press conference where he had an answer for Powell —
a thinly disguised swipe at him and the other Republicans who disagree with him:
The session with reporters comes one day after Republicans led the Senate Armed Services Committee in rejecting Bush’s proposal for interrogating and prosecuting terrorism suspects. The dissident group, led by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said Bush’s approach would jeopardize the safety of U.S. troops.
“It’s unacceptable to think there’s any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective,” said Bush, growing animated as he spoke.
It’s pretty clear that if Americans — and that includes parts of the Republican party — want change out of this administration in anyway it’s not going to be by putting the same Congress in place. There has to be a chance in the mix, a strengthening of independent Republican voices and Democrats. Divided government increasingly seems the only way that there is a chance that the policies can be if not changed in the current administration but influenced in their implementation.
Bush’s comment is vintage political speak. Where did Powell and the other Republicans ever compare behavior in general? They didn’t.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.