We’ve Come a Long Way Since 1999

Ladies and gentlemen, the comedy stylings of Secretary of State Rice:

In an interview on the ABC News program “This Week,” Ms. Rice called on General Musharraf to end the state of emergency “as soon as possible,” saying that his vows to hold elections by early January and to shed his military uniform were “essential to getting Pakistan back on a democratic path.”

“The state of emergency has got to be lifted and lifted as soon as possible,” she said.

Ms. Rice conceded that even if General Musharraf gave up his role as head of the Pakistani Army and his re-election was certified by the nation’s Supreme Court, “this is not a perfect situation.” But she asserted that Pakistan had “come a long way from 1999 and the military coup,” and expressed hope that signs of political progress, seen before General Musharraf declared the state of emergency, would not be lost.

This, on the same day that General Musharraf asserted that martial law would continue through the January election.

Speaking at a news conference one day after President Bush called him the best president for Pakistan, General Musharraf said the emergency decree he issued on Nov. 3 was justified by the need to fight terrorism and would “ensure absolutely fair and transparent elections.”

That the Secretary of State is able to find air between the current state of affairs in Pakistan and the 1999 military coup is certainly intriguing.  But then, it’s not exactly inconsistent.  The Bush White House is known for thinking that elections held under conditions tantamount to military occuption (for example, actual military occupation) are, you know, possibly neat-o.

More troubling for the United States, or anyway its citizens, whoever they are, I forget, is that creeping it-could-have-been-worse-ism seems to be the rhetorical veneer of choice for a ruling class bent on destroying constitutional rule-of-law.  Casual and hell-bent at the same time, we are getting the “just folks” routine from a group of people who seem to be more and more arbitrarily divided up into “political parties” as they come to seem more and more in agreement about the superfluity of law when it’s in the way of the expedience and comfort of monied rule.

This is not to say that monied interests did not used to be in control.  It’s not to say, for example, that the Clinton years, the Bush I years, the Reagan years, and so on, didn’t, when it comes to measuring the extent to which the United States was really “of by and for the people”, suck.  Rather, it’s to say that they, the powerful, both used to feel the need to put up the appearance of adherance to the rule law and were demonstrably slowed down by that need.

This is an important lesson.  Requiring the appearance of law-abidingness may be 9/10ths of the value of having those laws in the first place.  It slows creeping authoritarianism down.  And that is the difference between then and now.  Now, we have members of the allegedly left-er wing political party (Schumer) both asserting that waterboarding is illegal and that they will pass a law against it — thus demonstrating that “law” is nothing.  It’s not as though any of this is to be taken seriously, even in passing.

Frank Rich pointed out the parallels between Pakistan and the United States in a column that made the blog-rounds today.  I want to add only that I note the utter gratuitousness of the Democratic cave-in.  It seems that the Democratic leadership is surrendering more, and more quickly, to the Republicans than would be necessary in order to meet the needs of any political calculation — even any grossly mistaken political calculation.  This leaves one wondering exactly what the agenda is.  

Look, I knew, you knew, we all knew that we were not going to get as much as we hoped for from Democratic wins in the House and Senate in 2006.  We knew that Republicans could still obstruct like gangbusters and we knew that the Dems in power were not as left-wing as we are.  Those in the blogosphere who, to this day, find it fun to remind us of these facts are missing the point.  We knew that, folks.  We’re not idiots.  It’s the superfluity of the alleged concessions that vexes.

Me, I’m where I was in 1999.  Not believing any of the shit, any of it, that I see coming from Washington.  Except now it’s worse.  And, too, now we have the blogosphere, where we register our discontent.  Our fury.  

As Secretary Rice said, we have indeed “come a long way from 1999”, but it’s nothing to be proud of.  Me, I’m wondering when the 21st century is going, finally, to start.  And more than that, I’m afraid that maybe it already has.