Ghost Story

Every now and then even the most intellectually self-satisfied among us have an epiphany of sorts with respect to the true nature of issues we thought we had long since sorted out. This happened to me this week as I followed the actions of our resolute Senate with respect to President Obama’s request for funds to begin the deactivation and closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Somehow, 90 percent of the members of that august body felt it would be inappropriate at the current time to fund the President’s effort to erase this stain of hypocrisy from the nation’s record. They were apparently concerned that the President had not given due consideration to the potential complications resulting from doing the right thing. Such an overwhelming consensus is seldom seen in the Senate, unless they are defeating an ethics bill.

It is apparent that despite the total rout of the Republican Party in the recent national elections, and despite the internal disorder of the Republican Party, and despite the declining popularity of virtually every potential Republican spokesman, the Democratic Party is still afraid. Like the abuse victim who has just escaped after years in some sociopath’s torture dungeon, the Democratic Party cannot accept the reality of their situation and, for the first time in years, relax. My epiphany, which in retrospect seems simple enough, is that it isn’t that the Democratic Party and its leaders lack confidence in themselves, but that they completely lack faith in the American people.

I used to believe that the Democratic Party was so weak and ineffective in national leadership because the Party was too diverse, lacked consensus on specifics and was doomed forever to disintegrate when pressure was applied. The fact that only six of the 57 Democrats in the Senate voted to assist the President in bringing the detention, interrogation and prosecution of Guantanamo inmates under the rule of law seems to give the lie to Democratic inability to achieve consensus. The Democrats can be remarkably united when it comes to running scared.

In fairness, perhaps there is some room for debate on the implications of shutting down the Guantanamo prison, but I find none of the arguments compelling. I do not accept that the first priority of the government is the safety of the American people; the first priority has always been implementing and upholding the nation’s principles, but even if you are concerned about safety, what’s the issue? Our prisons are full of wretched scum. There are thousands of inmates in American prisons who are crazier, meaner and just generally less pleasant than any of the half-assed Al Qaeda James Bonds housed at Quantanamo. Two weeks in Angola and these “hardened terrorists” will be trying to swim down the Mississippi to get back to Cuba.

I really believe that the Democratic Senators know what is fundamentally right and most of them probably believe that President Obama can properly manage what may be a complex and difficult process; they are just afraid that the American people are too shortsighted, fickle and vulnerable to bullshit to be relied upon. They are afraid of putting their political careers on the line when they know the Republicans will try to hang them with every failure, real or imagined, resulting from closing Guantanamo. In that respect, the Republican Party continues to have more integrity than the Democrats; Republicans actually stand behind their mediaeval principles, no matter the consequences. You can look at what has transpired since the 2008 election if you disagree.

I had hoped that the Democratic Party was beginning to emerge from the years of the mentality of victim-hood that had resulted from being consistently out-maneuvered by the more ruthless and determined Republicans. Alas, this is not yet so. Lee Atwater and Karl Rove still haunt the uneasy sleep of Senate Democrats and these ghosts will not be exorcised until the Senators commit to the ideal that the welfare of the nation is more important than their individual political livelihoods and that truth, honor and decency cannot be measured by either logistical efficacy or electoral success.