Semi-Daily Journal

No stranger than this headline from AP last week:

"White House supports Bush mideast position."

I knew Cheney had a lot of power, but that's ridiculous.

No stranger than this headline from AP last week:

"White House supports Bush mideast position."

I knew Cheney had a lot of power, but that's ridiculous.

"The image of the White House having to negotiate with the Justice Department and the Pentagon is a very strange one."

It's not so strange to me. They have a bunch of detainees. The degree to which those detainees are thought to be involved in crimes isn't clear, and it's also not clear how serious the crimes are.

It's not a matter of "negotiation" so much as attempting to get Justice and Defense to as clearly as possible state what the crimes are, and how likely it is that the people in question were involved. The Departments of Justice and Defense, to be safe, would like to hold everyone forever. But the White House needs to balance those wishes against various State-Department-type concerns about how much the U.S. can afford to offend friendly governments.

For example, the White House wouldn't want to release without trial someone who was intimately involved in the 9/11 attacks, no matter how offended friendly governments might be. But they also wouldn't want to hold some poor cab driver who simply once gave Osama bin Laden a ride to an airport.

>>The Departments of Justice and Defense, to be safe, would like to hold everyone forever.<<

Which means that we need different, very different people at the top of Justice and Defense, doesn't it?

You're absolutely right, Mark.

IMO, what Bush should do is to get some intermediaries, who could try to persuade Justice and the DoD to move faster on White House priorities. Since, you know, it's not like Bush has any command authority or anything like that.

I think that Donald Rumsfield might be willing to come out of retirement to talk with the Pentagon - he's a former Sec Defense, and might still know somebody there. As a retired CEO, he probably has time on his hand.

For negotiating with the DoJ, I'm going to surprise everybody here, and reommend former Sentaor John Ashcroft. Since losing his re-election race, he's had nothing to do. Bush could promise him some government position, if he could pull some strings in the DoJ.

Mark Bahner wrote, "It's not so strange to me. They have a bunch of detainees. The degree to which those detainees are thought to be involved in crimes isn't clear, and it's also not clear how serious the crimes are."

Uh huh. They've only had what, a couple of years now to try to figure it out? And now it looks like they're trying only due to outside pressure.

Sure, the White House presses DOJ and DOD. But who listens to them? The real question is, what does Blair House want? Maybe to bring the White House back into line? Blair House (the veep) can't have W running with Blair (the pm), now, can it?

It should come as no surprise that the government is often in conflict with itself-- this is nothing new and nothing “strange.” For example State and CIA are often in conflict. State often wants to do a deal in the form of some treaty of agreement, and they really don’t care that much about the security implications, or if the other side cheats. On the other hand, CIA very much cares about the security implications and would just as soon not do the deal. So they fight. Commerce and State are also sometimes in conflict. For example State wanted trade restrictions against Poland the USSR because of martial law in Poland. But Commerce was opposed. The US government is not a monolith by design. The founding fathers wanted fragmented power, and they wanted the various parts of the government to fight with each other, and this is what we have. All in all, it’s a good system, despite the inefficiencies.

It should come as no surprise that the government is often in conflict with itself-- this is nothing new and nothing “strange.” For example State and CIA are often in conflict. State often wants to do a deal in the form of some treaty of agreement, and they really don’t care that much about the security implications, or if the other side cheats. On the other hand, CIA very much cares about the security implications and would just as soon not do the deal. So they fight. Commerce and State are also sometimes in conflict. For example State wanted trade restrictions against Poland the USSR because of martial law in Poland. But Commerce was opposed. The US government is not a monolith by design. The founding fathers wanted fragmented power, and they wanted the various parts of the government to fight with each other, and this is what we have. All in all, it’s a good system, despite the inefficiencies.

The White House will "press" Justice and the Pentagon the same way that it "presses" Ariel Sharon over settlements: for show, with hand signals that it's not serious.

Thanks, Barry.

Conflicts within governments are the rule rather than the exception. What's odd about the Bush administration is that no one really believes that Bush is capable of controlling Rumsfeld or Cheney. This isn't unique in history, but usually is seen with 7-year-old child kings and mentally-ill or semi-retarded heirs to the throne.

What's really funny, though, as seeing the conventional wisdom about this creep to the front page of the paper as if it were entirely normal. Usually idiot kings are protected by elaborate layers of fiction.