We love you. You have your Nobel Prize. Now, please shut up!

[minty_green]

Hey, look, everyone! Ex-President Bush criticized Clinton.

[Miller]

Yeah, that was sorta the point I was making, RexDart. But I don’t think the sordid reputation of the presidency (or politics in genreal) is entirely unearned post Nixon. Of all the presidents who have served in my life time, Carter is the only one who I’d welcome into my home, and I still think he was a poor president. A heckuva nice guy, but not a great leader. The rest of them, well, I’d spit in their face if it weren’t a waste of perfectly good saliva.

Could be worse, though. They could be Senators.

[Enderw24]

*Originally posted by Revtim *
**Those were disgareements; I fail to see how those were attempts to “quiet” him. Do you consider every disagreement as an attempt to “quiet” the person being disagreed with? **

In a sense, yes. Not quiet as in forcing a hand over december’s mouth or yanking his hands away from the keyboard, but you’re attempting to silence him through debate. That, in itself, is fine. (well…it is the pit…).

The problem is that the means of your debate are flawed. Yes, Carter has the right to speak. So does december. So does everyone. You get nowhere with it. Worse, you get caught in this endless loop where everyone has rights and no one’s debating the point!

But getting back to the first paragraph, quieting someone isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If done through logical debate, to quiet someone means they’ve got nothing left to say. It means you’ve won the argument.

[Muffin]

*Originally posted by wring *
**(prolly some one else has already done this, but…)

CIte??
**

Here ya go.

[paperbackwriter]

From the keyboard of Maud’Dib

It is not “all dissenters”, it is ex-presidents. Do you remember Reagan, Bush, or Ford* giving public dissenting opinions about the current presidents?

ex-President Ford wrote a New York Times editorial urging the issuance of a “harshly worded rebuke” of Clinton:

Ex-Pres Gerald R Ford Op-Ed article proposes Congress deliver and Pres Clinton accept harshly worded rebuke rendered by members of both parties to conclude Monica Lewinsky matter; holds Clinton has broken faith with those who elected him

(abstract linked and quoted since article is in the pay archives)

Ex-president George Bush criticized Clinton for expressing a political opinion, while Clinton was still sitting president:

If this continues, then I’ll tell the nation what I think of him as a human being and as a person

Bush Sr. did make one circumspect negative statement about the Lewinsky Affair

Finally, pressed to comment on whether Clinton had “diminished” the office of president, Bush said, “I’m afraid, for now, it has been diminished.”

Although december is correct when he says Bush Sr. in general refused to publicly comment on the Clinton impeachment while the process was underway. In a NewsHour interview he(Bush) refused to answer Jim Lehrer’s question about the impeachment proceedings in the House:

Jim, I forgot to tell you this. I have tried to stay out of all this procedure and commenting on what I really feel in my heart about it, so with all respect, I just don’t want to get into that.

Yes, all these comments are about Clinton. No, I am not defending Clinton, but he is the only Democrat to be sitting president in the last 20 years. Whatever Clinton did to deserve criticism, it is clear that his predecessors did criticize him during his term.

*That link shows that Carter was much more direct about his criticism of Clinton. Did december and Maud-Dib complain about Carter’s criticism of a sitting president back then?

[Scruff]

All the supposed scandals of the subsequent administrations, from Reagan to Clinton, have turned out to be basically groundless.

Err, Iran-Contra anyone? Bueller?

I’d argue that that was something of a scandal, which was rather cleverly swept under the carpet by a combination of unlimited congressional immunity, Bill Casey dying at the right time and a certain President pardoning George Schultz before he had been convicted of anything (but more importantly, before he had given testimony to the Tower Commision).

Of course, now we have Ollie North (respected War Hero and Political Pundit) and John Poindexter (Director of TIA or whatever that thing is called) as part of the continuing legacy of the Bush Family Presidencies, so you might be forgiven for thinking that they are true defenders of democracy and the republic.

And do you really think that:
(a) Anything Carter says will change George Bush’s decision to invade Iraq?
(b) Invading Iraq is “the right thing” to do?
And as to the subtext: I personally think that Jimmy Carter probably had more personal integrity than any two of the presidents who have followed. Although I don’t think he was a great president.
Reagan was clueless (although that might have been early onset Alzheimer’s Disease… as an aside, regardless of my feelings towards the man as a president, I really really would not wish his current situation on anyone), Bush the Elder was basically inept and taken with covert action (former DIRCIA, what do you expect) and hiding government from the people, Clinton was your basic dirty old man with poor taste in women and questionable judgement, and Bush the Younger seems aimiable, quite likeable, but I don’t get the sense that he thinks things through a lot, and I do think that he’s a bit vague on the Constitution (or he’s getting poor advice from his council)…

[cuauhtemoc]

*Originally posted by reprise *
**I’m curious about this idea that “the office of President” is in some way - in and of itself - sacred or deserving of respect.

Our Prime Minister is effectively the CEO of Australia - if he performs his job well, he earns our respect; if he doesn’t, then (unlike in the US) he’s likely to be replaced long before the next election.**

The day a new president takes office a kind of halo appears over his head and everyone has to treat him like Jesus. Thomas Jefferson was uncomfortable with all the pomp and circumstance, and for good reason. We had just fought a war to rid ourselves of monarchical rule, and many thought that the office of President, created by our constitution, was too much like a king. Of course there are many important differences, and more checks and balances than had ever existed in a monarchy. Yet a president still gets that weird, magic, regal mystique the very day he takes office, even today, whether or not he’s ever done anything of note in his life. Almost as if he… inherited it!

[OpalCat]

*Originally posted by Muad’Dib *
*It is not “all dissenters”, it is ex-presidents. Do you remember Reagan, Bush, or Ford giving public dissenting opinions about the current presidents? It is rude. You are no longer in the office, it is time to ride off into the sunset. **

Yeah, some of the people best able to have a perspective on the matter… why should they be allowed to express an opinion?

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

<< mind boggling painfully >>

Geez, what alternate universe are you inhabiting, Rex?

The Baby Boomers gained an image of the presidency as a bed of corruption, based mostly on the Watergate scandal, and passed that on to their kids (my generation.) So people for the last 30 years have held a negative image of the office of the presidency based almost entirely on that incident. All the supposed scandals of the subsequent administrations, from Reagan to Clinton, have turned out to be basically groundless.

Jeepers, Iran-Contra? Was that just a “supposed” groundless scandal?

You think that the fact that the President of the United States had sex with a White House intern, and then lied about it when caught, was a “groundless” and “supposed” scandal? Do the names “Paula Jones” or “Gennifer Flowers” ring any bells? Or were those “groundless”?

How about the Clinton fundraising scandal? How soon they forget…I suppose it’s pointless to mention Whitewater, huh?

And you sound like you think that there was no such thing as a scandalous Presidency before Watergate. Does the phrase “Teapot Dome” ring any bells? (Hint–Warren Harding.)

And U.S. Grant’s presidency was notorious for graft and corruption. The “Whiskey Ring”?

Andrew Johnson was nearly impeached.

You need to read some history, kid. What are they teaching in schools nowadays…?

[minty_green]

Nitpick: Andrew Johnson was impeached. He just wasn’t convicted.

[Muad_Dib]

paperbackwriter and will be the first to say that they were wrong to do so as well.

[Muad_Dib]

Oops.

“…and I will be the first…”

[Giraffe]

*Originally posted by Enderw24 *
**In a sense, yes. Not quiet as in forcing a hand over december’s mouth or yanking his hands away from the keyboard, but you’re attempting to silence him through debate. That, in itself, is fine. (well…it is the pit…).

The problem is that the means of your debate are flawed. Yes, Carter has the right to speak. So does december. So does everyone. You get nowhere with it. Worse, you get caught in this endless loop where everyone has rights and no one’s debating the point! **

Wasn’t the point “should Jimmy Carter be allowed to express his opinion on whether the U.S. goes to war with Iraq?” This was followed by statements of either “yes, as this is a democracy” or “no, former presidents should not disagree with current presidents”. Both of which are discussions of the point.

No one said that december should not be allowed to ask the question. Several people said it was a stupid thing to say. Not at all the same thing.

[andros]

December, I’d like to get this a little closer to the OP.

It seems like your beef with President Carter is that he’s commenting on foreign policy, and specifically speaking critically of the policies of President Bush and the current administration. Such criticism, you’re suggesting, is contrary to decorum and tradition, and therefore out of line.

Now, reading the CNN article you linked to, I certainly see him commenting on foreign affairs. But I don’t see how he’s contradicting or or criticizing Mr. Bush’s policies.

Can you explain that a little more for me? With what “stated policy” is Mr. Carter disagreeing?

[Giraffe]

And can I just say, who gives a flying fuck whether or not other former presidents expressed opinions on U.S. policy? What does that have to do with anything? Even if past former presidents have traditionally stayed silent, who cares? Traditions from the past should not handcuff the present.

[december]

*Originally posted by andros *Can you explain that a little more for me? With what “stated policy” is Mr. Carter disagreeing?

Gladly. An important aspect of Bush’s policy is the threat that the US might act independently of the UN. This threat has encouraged the UN to finally pass a resolution with some teeth in it, four years later than they ought to have done. Bush’s position and the UN resolution have finally resulted in Iraq making at least a pretence of complying with his prior agreements.

When Carter publicly said that the US should follow the UN’s decision on going to war, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong, he was undermining Bush’s threat, to some degree. The fact that he was abroad when he said it made it a bit worse.

Nobody knows whether or not Bush would act without UN agreement. No doubt, it would depend on circumstances. Given the uncertainty, Carter’s comment could have a non-trivial effect on how other countries behave.

Frankly, I see this more as a matter of principle. I don’t know that people would really be misled into thinking that Carter’s position will have impact on the current President. As I said in the OP, I admire Jimmy Carter, so it bothers me to see him doing something foolish.

[andros]

Carter publicly said that the US should follow the UN’s decision on going to war, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong

Help me out here, I’m slow tonight. When did Carter say this? And what, precisely, did he say? 'Cos I sure don’t see anything like that quoted in the CNN article.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

I’m really referencing a practice speicfically applying to ex-Presidents. Maybe Duck Duck Goose, the Wise Wizard of Web-Searches, the Glorious Genius of Googling, can find better references.

The Glorious Genius of Googling has now proved to her own satisfaction, first, that the phrase has nothing to do with ex-presidents, that the originator of the phrase intended it only as a call to drop partisan politics and work together for the common good.

And second, nobody out there that I can find offhand is using it to mean specifically an ex-president speaking out in public against his successor’s policies. It’s occasionally used to mean any criticism of a sitting president’s foreign policy, by any American, but mainly it refers to the inability to drop partisan politics and work together on foreign policy issues. Again, ex-presidents are not mentioned.

Far from being a “time-honored tradition”, the phrase dates only from 1945, and has nothing to do with ex-presidents.

Backwards, O backwards, turn time in thy flight…

<< visualize calendar pages turning >>

October 2002.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4513934,00.html

Clinton’s coded jibes at Bush give conference what it wants to hear
Former president’s speech delights delegates in Blackpool

Jonathan Freedland
Thursday October 3, 2002
The Guardian

This was the speech of a president in exile. Like a deposed leader seeking refuge in a friendly nation, Bill Clinton came to Blackpool to deliver a message that can barely be heard in today’s America.

He had to be careful: an unwritten rule of US public life demands that “politics stops at the water’s edge”, that partisan hostilities be shelved when it comes to foreign policy.

February 2002.
http://www.gopusa.com/mikebayham/mb_0221.shtml

The Dreaded Return to Normalcy
By Mike Bayham
February 21, 2002

In the days after the terrorist strikes, America became a new nation, at least temporarily. God was given probation and allowed to reenter the public school system, patriotism in most places outside of Berkeley was no longer considered corny, and partisan politics was deferred to support of the president.

< snip >

There used to be the common held belief in the political parties that politics stops at the water’s edge. This unwritten rule was shredded when Tom Daschle started to mock President Bush’s declaration of the “Axis of Evil.” Daschle has since backed off a bit, though former presidential rival Al Gore, who had recently declared his return to the national discussion (i.e., taking pot shots at the president), has shown no hesitation on criticizing Bush under the guise of pandering to the “feelings” of the rest of the world.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_SeptOct_2001/hitchens.html

Farewell to the Helmsman

During his 22 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jesse Helms has had a fairly simple political philosophy: the only sovereignty that matters is America’s own. Now Helms is no longer chairman and may soon be out of a job. But he leaves behind a storied legacy as latter-day America’s quintessential isolationist-interventionist.

By Christopher Hitchens

< snip >

The fundamental mistake made by Mead was to view Helms as a kind of reincarnation of Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican majority leader who made himself so indispensable to the promulgation of the Truman Doctrine and who is remembered for one of those untrue truisms that pepper the conversation of the supposedly wised-up. (The same Washington hand who will inform you, as if for the first time, that “all politics is local” is liable to instruct you that “politics stops at the water’s edge.”) Of course, politics ever since at least the War of 1812 has begun with “water’s edge” questions: witness other pseudo concepts such as “the Vietnam syndrome.”

And the celebrated distinction between interventionist and isolationist turns out upon examination to be a distinction about whether or not to intervene in Europe, or in wars being fought by others. The old “isolationists” were all for an American empire in the Philippines; Pat Buchanan may have thought the Second World War a snare and a delusion for the United States, but he was 100 percent for intervention in Nicaragua.

Senator Helms’s own Weltanschauung, to employ a word that he would avoid, has always been of this sort. There is even an act that bears his name, enjoining European and other nations from doing business with, or in, Cuba. Not much hydrophobia there; the water’s edge is no deterrent either to extreme partisanship or extreme meddling in the affairs of other states.

http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/0301/ijpe/pj61bide.htm

The U.S. public holds a general internationalist sentiment, but President Bush faces a real challenge in translating that sentiment into a truly bipartisan foreign policy, says Senator Joseph Biden. The senator sees such bipartisanship as “not only possible, but necessary to advance our national interests.” Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995.

First impressions are important in all walks of life, including politics and government. Despite the delayed transition, President Bush is off to a fast start. In the area of national security, he has assembled an able team of advisers. But he has far less experience in foreign policy than in domestic policy. He needs to be a fast learner, because foreign policy challenges will almost certainly confront him soon.

< snip >

A key challenge facing the President is whether he can convert this general internationalist sentiment into a foreign policy that enjoys bipartisan backing. Half a century ago, Senator Arthur Vandenberg said that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” This is so in times of real crisis, but in truth foreign policy debates rarely are immune from partisan politics. Even during the Cold War, when a consensus favored containment of Soviet communism, there was often sharp disagreement about the means to that end, such as whether to support a particular guerrilla movement abroad or fund a particular weapons system at home.

Debate is essential to our democracy. But I remain hopeful that we can avoid divisive partisan fights. Achieving bipartisanship on the following key issues is not only possible, but necessary to advance our national interests:

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/polipro/pp9904.htm

April 14, 1999

The 2000 election campaign could turn global warming, the gravest threat to civilization in the next century, into an issue of party politics, frustrating action to preserve the conditions of continued life on earth. This is especially likely if Al Gore is the Democratic presidential candidate and George W. Bush, an oil-state governor whose campaign would be heavily financed by the energy sector, is the Republican candidate.

< snip >

Just after the Second World War, Republicans and Democrats reached a historic consensus over post-war security policy in Europe when they accepted the Marshall Plan and U.S. membership in NATO.

Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a former isolationist, led his party into the world, famously saying, “Politics stops at the water’s edge.” Today, faced with the environmental equivalent of the Soviet threat, we cannot afford a campaign-quickened split over the reality of climate change or the resulting necessity of changing the profligate American way of life. Politics should stop at the planet’s edge.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/leadership121798.htm

This Time, Politics Beyond the Water’s Edge

By Helen Dewar and Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 17, 1998; Page A1

The unwritten rule that politics stops at the water’s edge was rudely shattered yesterday, as many congressional Republicans who have long distrusted and reviled President Clinton sharply criticized his motivations in bombing Iraq on the eve of a House vote on impeachment.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) declared that he could not support Clinton’s decision and joined many House Republicans in questioning whether the attack might be a desperate effort to frustrate the impeachment action.

“Both the timing and the policy are open to question,” Lott asserted shortly before the bombing began.

http://www.fff.org/comment/ed1197a.asp

Topsy Turvy Foreign Policy
by Sheldon Richman, November 1997

U.S. foreign policy can be confusing.

< snip >

The policymakers have never liked public scrutiny of foreign affairs. It is the part of government that is least open to the people’s examination. Lots of information is kept secret – until recently we were not even allowed to know how much the CIA spends each year.

Even partisanship, which might occasionally force debate if only for political reasons, is discouraged. “Politics stops at the water’s edge” is the slogan that has been used to stifle criticism of presidential policy in foreign matters. It sounds like an invocation of patriotism. But translated, it means: “Shut up.”

http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/0796/ijpe/pj9hamil.htm

IMPACT OF CONGRESSIONAL POWER SHIFT ON FOREIGN POLICY
An Interview with Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton

Question: How has the concept that U.S. foreign policy should somehow rise above politics worked out in an era when control of Congress and the White House has so often been split between Democrats and Republicans?

Hamilton: It is important, I think, to remember that the broad themes of American foreign policy stay very much the same from one administration to the other and are supported by both parties – support for NATO, for example; for the Middle East peace process; for a good relationship with Japan; trying to manage the Chinese relationship. You certainly see differences of tactics, you see a lot of strong rhetoric from time to time, but the bipartisan tradition with regard to the major themes of American foreign policy since World War II is fairly impressive. Now that’s not to say we don’t have some differences. We have a lot of them, but there is something to the claim that, in the case of foreign policy, “politics stops at the water’s edge.”

http://www.fff.org/comment/ed0796d.asp

Bob Dole Should Rediscover a Better Republican Tradition
by Sheldon Richman, July 1996

Bob Dole is playing the defense card.

He has undoubtedly calculated that President Clinton is vulnerable on defense and that Dole, a badly wounded World War II veteran, thus has the advantage. Well, maybe.

< snip >

The slogan “politics stops at the water’s edge” has worked to shut up people skeptical of an activist foreign policy, as though debate and criticism were dangerous to our society. Morley had the best answer to that slogan: “Politics stops at the water’s edge when policies stop at the water’s edge.” Unfortunately, policies do not stop there.

And finally, the source of the quote.

Arthur Vandenberg and the context of the remark.

Arthur H. Vandenberg

U.S. Senator from Michigan, 1928-1951

Senator Arthur Vandenberg delivered a celebrated “speech heard round the world” in the Senate chamber on January 10, 1945, announcing his conversion from isolationism to internationalism. He called on America to assume the responsibilities of world leadership and endorsed the creation of the United Nations.

Previously, Vandenberg had been a leading proponent of isolationism, determined to keep the United States out of another world war, but the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caused him to reassess his position.

During the Second World War, he grappled with the potential international role for the United States in the postwar world. In 1947, at the start of the Cold War, Vandenberg became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In that position, he cooperated with the Truman administration in forging bipartisan support for the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO – the first mutual defense treaty that the United States had entered since its alliance with France during the American Revolution.

Asserting that “politics stops at the water’s edge,” Vandenberg’s Senate career stands as a monument to the benefits of bipartisanship in American foreign policy.

Vandenberg wasn’t addressing the issue of an ex-president criticizing a sitting president. He was issuing a call to drop partisan politics and work together to try to help clean up the mess left by WWII.

[december]

*Originally posted by Duck Duck Goose *The Glorious Genius of Googling has now proved to her own satisfaction, first, that the phrase has nothing to do with ex-presidents

Thanks for all your good work, DDG. What I really wanted was something even more challenging: I believe that there has been a tradition of past Presidents not second-guessing the current President, but instead quietly leaving the national stage. Those who provided advice generally did so privately, and only when requested by the current President. E.g., I think of Truman going home to Independence, MO. In the case of Eisenhower, I remember his farewell address, but cannot think of any public statement he made after that.

As you point out, this practice is not called “leaving politics at the water’s edge,” I don’t know what this tradition is called, nor anything about its history. Can you find any information about it?

[Princhester]

*Originally posted by december *
**Saddam miscalculated US action when he invaded Kuwait. Unfortunate words from a former President may encourage another miscalculation. So Carter’s words could contribute to starting a war. Here’s why:

The best scenario in Iraq would be for Saddam to genuinely disarm his own WMDs. That appears very unlikely to me. If it’s possible at all, the only way it could happen would be if Saddam felt totally threatened. Then he might conceivably change his long-term pattern.

OTOH if Saddam thinks he can fool the UN inspectors again, and that the UN may prevent an attack, then he has less incentive to sincerely comply with the UN resolutions. So, it’s conceivable that Carter’s words could directly or indirectly take some pressure off Saddam and help convince him not to disarm.
**

So in the red corner we have Jimmy Carter (you, know him, ex-president of the US, broker of the Israel-Egypt settlement, Nobel prize winner etc etc). And in the blue corner we have december from New Jersey, a man whose “qualifications” are written large all over GD.

The latter says that in light of his insightful analysis of the Iraq situation, the public statements of the former are inappropriate and he should shut up.

Makes sense to me…