Obama and Leadership in a Time of Crisis
Jonathan Denby
On the night of April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King took the stage in front of a crowd of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee and delivered one of his most memorable speeches. "Well, I don't know what will happen now," said King. "We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." The next day he was assassinated.
If April 4, 1968 is a day that will forever live in infamy, then November 4th, 2008 will be remembered as a day of national greatness, when the American people realized Dr. King’s vision of the Promise Land more than ever before. The election of Barack Obama to the presidency represents a giant leap toward racial-equality and progress in the United States, as well as a departure from, and rejection of, the un-American policies that have governed the last eight years.
Great leaders are forged out of great crises. It is their ability to lead their people through, and to eventually overcome, a monumental crisis that makes them great. We think of the Founding Fathers during the American Revolution, or Abraham Lincoln during our Civil War, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Depression and World War Two, and of course Dr. King during the struggle for civil rights. These were instances when the very existence of our nation was at stake, and catastrophe stared us in the face. And yet ordinary people stepped forth to meet the challenge, and a leader arose amongst them to symbolize their struggle. In our time, in the great crises of our moment, Obama may be that leader.
There is little doubt now that America is in the midst of another great crisis—possibly one of the greatest it has ever faced. The worst economic situation since the Depression threatens the livelihoods of millions; we are bogged down in the quagmire of the Middle East, fighting one war that should have never been fought, and another war that can end in humiliating defeat and return to power the same people behind the attacks of 9/11; and, lastly, one of the gravest constitutional crises in our history threatens the very bedrock on which our nation stands. This is what now confronts us as a people, and what confronts Obama when he assumes his office on January 20th.
Obama is an unlucky inheritor of this crisis, for it originated in the incompetent and tyrannical rule of George W. Bush. That despotic and lawless regime (it does not deserve the title of "administration" nor of “presidency”), along with their Republican allies in Congress, drove America into the ground economically, politically, and morally. The first challenge Obama will face will be to mend the damage wrought by Bush and the Republicans.
Internationally, Obama will have to repair alliances destroyed or weakened by Bush and will have to reach out diplomatically to nations that were antagonized, bullied, and threatened by his regime. He will have to extricate the United States from one of the greatest foreign policy debacles of all history, the Iraq War. He will also have to rescue the current situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency threatens to defeat the coalition forces fighting there. Finally, he will have to repair the world's image of the United States, which has suffered grievous and possibly irreparable harm, primarily because of America’s use of torture under Bush’s rein.
No other crime is more heinous, depraved, and un-American than the regime’s systematic use of torture against prisoners, both domestic and foreign. It is an issue that will haunt Obama from his first moments in office. He would do well to immediately dismantle the internment camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has served as a symbol of Bush’s disregard for human rights and due process of law. Obama will have to immediately stop torture that is still taking place at American facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and CIA “black” sites around the globe. Lastly, the Obama administration will have to proclaim to the world, loud and clear, that America will never again use torture as an instrument of state. Strong laws must be enacted to prevent torture in the future—laws that are immune to political tampering by either the Executive or Legislative branches. Moreover, victims of American torture must be given just compensation and those responsible for implementing policies of torture must be prosecuted under the full extent of American and international law—including George Bush and Dick Cheney.
Domestically, Obama will have to contend with a major economic crises that, if mismanaged, can lead to another depression. Fortunately, indications are that the American government and business sector, as well as the country at large, understand the gravity of the situation, and that all resources are being mobilized to resuscitate the economy. Obama, taking a page out of FDR’s book, is creating a huge public-works project—a New, New Deal—that will hopefully create millions of new jobs in the coming years. But this is not enough. For true recovery to happen, and to prevent a repetition of the crisis in the future, Obama will have to roll back Bush’s massive tax-cuts for the ultra-wealthy, as well as bring back regulation and oversight of Wall Street and Corporate America—institutions that simply cannot be trusted to regulate themselves.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS
“We will overthrow Parliament in a legal way through legal means. Democracy will be overthrown with the tools of democracy.”—Adolf Hitler
One of Obama’s most pressing challenges is to repair the constitutional devastation created by Bush and his allies. For, between September 11th, 2001 to the present, Bush and the Republicans have mounted an unprecedented assault on the rule of the law, the Constitution, and long-standing American traditions and principles—all the while building the mechanisms of dictatorship upon the ruins of the people's liberty. The Constitution, as designed by the Founders, was supposed to protect against this. But, it did not. Instead, the Constitution’s system of checks and balances—established specifically to thwart the rise of tyranny in government—completely collapsed in the face of one-party Republican rule. With the three branches of government firmly in the hands of the regime’s party, there was nothing to stop the radical agenda of Bush and his allies. The result was predictable: massive corruption within government and industry, the repression of the press and the people, and the initiation of aggressive war.
In the last eight years of this constitutional nightmare, the only possible obstacle to the regime’s excesses, the Democratic Party, either shrank from putting up resistance, or, in many cases, actively collaborated with Bush and the Republicans in their criminality. Under Obama, this must change at once. The Democrats, in particular, have to be willing to take excessive powers away from their leader in the Executive and put them in the hands of Congress and the people in general. It will be a test of our representatives—who have hitherto failed—to put their loyalty to the Constitution above loyalty to their respective parties.
One of the starting points in this process of restoring and repairing the Constitution is for Congress to pass amendments that would give less war powers to the President. For, throughout our history, American presidents have abused their war powers by transforming the military into their own personal tool of conquest and domination. We think of James Polk in the conquest of Mexico; McKinley in the conquest of the Philippines; Theodore Roosevelt with the occupations of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Panama, etc…; Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon with the Vietnam War; Ronald Reagan with the covert wars on Nicaragua and El Salvador; and of course George Bush II and the outrageous invasion and occupation of Iraq. War is too serious a matter, to grave in its consequences, to leave up to the whims and prejudices of one man. Under Obama, the American government must put the powers to go to war back into the hands of its rightful owners: the Congress and the American people.
There are hopeful signs that this may happen. It was recently reported that two former secretaries of state, Warren Christopher and James A. Baker III, have proposed that the 1973 War Powers Act (which has been largely ignored by every president) be replaced with a special Congressional committee that would prevent a sitting president from waging war unilaterally. Another group formed by two former Congressmen are lobbying for even stricter limits on presidential authority to wage war without the consent of Congress or the people. It is now up to the Democratic congress to work with Obama in implementing these much needed changes.
The next step is for Congress to reverse the massive aggregation of power by the Bush regime. Invoking a ludicrous theory called the Unitary Executive, Dick Cheney and his neoconservative allies proposed that the President has the power to do anything he wished in a time of war, and that Congress, the courts, and the American people were all secondary to his wishes. There must be a loud and public repudiation of this dangerous and wholly Un-American doctrine by both Obama and the new Congress. America was not founded on the idea that one man could rule as he wished with no regard for law or the sovereignty of the people; on the contrary, we waged a revolution to defeat such an idea. It is therefore essential that Obama and Congress reiterate, through practice and through law, that America is not now, nor will ever be again, the house of an emperor, a king, or a wannabe dictator like Bush. As Thomas Paine, the great writer of the American Revolution, wrote that in America “the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”
If there is anyone who can reverse the damage that Bush has done to the Constitution, it is Obama. Having taught Constitutional Law as a professor at Chicago University, Obama is intimately familiar with the strengths, weaknesses, and complexities of the American Constitution. His personal knowledge and character will be invaluable if the constitutional checks and balances are to be restored and strengthened. Likewise, Obama must be willing to surrender some of his powers for the good of the democratic process and the people’s liberty. If he does this, it will put him on par with the likes of George Washington who, following the triumph of the Revolution, could easily have ruled as a king, but decided to finally surrender his power and retire to his home on Mount Vernon.
Lastly, and of equal importance, is for Congress, with the support of Obama, to bring to justice Bush, Cheney, and other members of the regime for the treasonous crimes they perpetrated. These crimes are well known by now publically and well documented. The perpetrators have openly and remorselessly admitted their guilt and their supporters have vowed to commit them again should they ever return to power. The time is now for Congress to embark on fully exposing these crimes in public hearings and tribunals, and to ask the courts to sentence those that are found guilty.
It cannot be overstated how important this is. To allow the regime’s crimes to go unpunished is to risk allowing them to happen all over again, perhaps on an even greater scale next time. To allow them to go unpunished is also to convey to future Congresses and Presidents that they are above the law, subject to no Constitution, and answerable to nobody but themselves. If Bush’s regime is allowed to create such a precedent than the future of America is far darker than collapsing economies and Middle East wars. The very pillars on which this nation stands, politically and socially, will collapse and Americans will live in neither a real democracy or even a fake democracy, but in a state wholly without rights, without liberty, without justice—where endless wars are fought for the enrichment of a few, where tyrants rule without hindrance, and where everything that once made America great and beautiful shrivels and dies.
The greatest crime of all, in fact, would be to ignore the blatant criminality of the last eight years. Sadly, Obama has given early indications that he has little desire to pursue any action. “I am looking more forward than I am backward,” Obama said in a recent interview when confronted with such a question. And members of his cabinet—some of whom collaborated with the regime—have stated their reluctance to bring the criminals to justice. One bright hope is talk of a commission being set up by Congressman John Conyers of Michigan to look at the crimes committed under Bush II. One would hope this commission has subpoena power and the will to bring about prosecutions of the regime’s members.
There will be those who will cry that this is “victor’s justice” and pure revenge; but those that allege such falsehoods are probably the same people who supported and collaborated with the regime in the first place. In truth, this will not be revenge by the Democrats against the Republicans, but justice against those who willfully subverted law and constitutions, tortured people, exposed intelligence agents, and waged wars of aggression against other nations. As Mr. Conyers stated, “Investigations are not a matter of payback or political revenge – it is our responsibility to examine what has occurred and to set an appropriate baseline of conduct for future administrations."
Obama is in the spotlight now and the eyes of the nation and of the world are upon him. The economy is in freefall, the Constitution in shambles, and the nation trapped in two major wars and facing a resurgent Al Qaeda and Taliban. That is more than enough for one president to face, much less resolve. If Obama can rise to the occasion, as many of us think he will, then he will not only be the first black president, but one of the greatest American leaders we have seen in a long time.
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