What's At Stake in the Iraq Funding Showdown

Neither the media nor the liberal blogs have picked up on the extent to which Nancy Pelosi and the House leadership are becoming a "shadow presidency" in the sense of forming both an alternative center of power in foreign and domestic policy. The significance of Pelosi's leaderhship has not escaped some on the right though. In a TownHall column today, conservatie think-tank warrior Thomas Sowell quotes Rep. Tom Lantos (chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs) as claiming that the Democrats "have an alternative Democratic foreign policy." According to Sowell, the Democrats are also "creating their own military policy on troop deployment" as well as attempting to dictate how the Bush administration is going to handle personnel matters like the hiring and firing of federal prosecutors.

Of course, it's not unusual for there to be multiple centers of power in American government. Congress also has a long history of interfering in the executive branch personnel matters, most recently by blocking John Bolton's nomination to be ambassador to the UN. The Constitution almost guarantees that there will be several centers of power through the system of institutional checks and balances.

But Pelosi is doing something different. She is seeking to displace the Bush administration as the primary center of leadership in this country and substitute herself for President Bush as the main spokesperson and symbol of the American people. It's a dangerous but necessary gambit. Because of their arrogance and incompetence, the Bush administration has forfeited the confidence of the American public. Not only did the Republican lose their majorities in Congress, but polls show that large majorities disapprove of Bush's conduct of the Iraq War, favor efforts to limit presidential discretion in handling troops, and support deadlines for withdrawing the bulk of American troops from Iraq. Faced with the loss of public support in the 2006 elections, the Bush administration responded by adapting a "surge" policy that was even more unwelcome to the American public than previous war strategies. It's not quite "Bush to America: Drop Dead!" But it's close.

In a very real sense, the Bush administration has abandoned the "representative" function of representative government and is now functioning as a renegade administration. In this context, Democratic initiatives in the House of Representatives are seeking to weaken the presidency as Sowell argues, they are seeking to provide a large majority of the American public with genuinely representative government in a time of war. With the 100 hours package, Pelosi was annoucing to the American public that the Democrats in the House of Representatives were going to enact long-needed legislation with broad public support like minimum wage increases. The same is true of the Congressional investigations that are spotlighting Bush administration's efforts to defy traditional standards of honesty and impartiality in American government. The point is to govern according to broadly accepted American standards.

This is why the fight over the Iraq funding legislation is so important. If President Bush goes ahead and signs the legislation, he will be acknowledging that he and his administration have lost control over the war to the Democratic leadership and the broader public. In a sense, he would be accepting the claim that Nancy Pelosi is more significant as a shadow president than he is as a president. For that reason, there is every reason to believe that President Bush will carry through on his veto threat. However, President Bush's campaign against the troop withdrawal deadlines in the current funding bill is not just about upholding his veto. Instead, the Bush administration is attempting to regain public support for Bush's claim that it is the president's prerogative to formulate war strategy as Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Public opinion is running 59%-34% in favor of mandating troop withdrawal at present. If President Bush can swing public opinion back around to his position, he can then claim to be the country's legitimate voice in conducting foreign and military policy.

There is considerable danger in the position of the Democratic leadership. Given that the Democrats have an "alternative" military and foreign policy favored by a large majority of the public, their status as the authentic bearers of representative government is now at risk in the battle over Iraq funding legislation. Illinois Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama has claimed that the Democrats will respond to a veto by giving the president the "clean bill" of Iraq war funding without withdrawal deadlines that Bush wants. If Democrats give Bush what he wants while almost 60% of the public wants a troop withdrawal deadline, the Democrats also will be abandoning just as much as the Bush administration and will giving up their own claim to represent the American people. That would be disastrous for the Democrats because it would confirm suspicions that the Democrats do not have the poltical courage needed for effective leadership. It would also be disastrous for American democracy because neither the administration nor the Democratic opposition would be representing the broad public opposition to the war in Iraq.

The long-range good of American democracy requires that the Democrats contest a Bush veto by either holding out for negotiations leading to a compromise or refusing to pass any bill that does not include a deadline for withdrawal. If President Bush were able to swing public opinion in his favor, he would win the battle over war funding and once again be a fully legitimate representative of the American people. However, if public opinion remains on the side of the Democratic position on troop withdrawals, the Democrats need to maintain their position until the Bush administration surrenders to public opinion and accepts severe constraints on the conduct of the war.

Once Nancy Pelosi decided to pose the Democrats as the "real" representatives of the American people, she committed the Democrats to seeing that the will of the people was enacted in Iraq policy. Anything less would mean that the entire government was abandoning representative democracy.