Let’s apply the Powell Doctrine to a current foreign policy issue. Not a grave, portentous geopolitical foreign policy issue like the Middle East. That’s too complicated. We’d be here (like the Middle East has been there) for thousands of years. Let’s apply the Powell Doctrine to a less sweeping foreign policy issue closer to home: illegal immigration.
The United States has deployed more than six thousand troops on the Mexican–American border to stop illegal immigration. Put that to the Powell Doctrine test.
1.Is a vital national security interest threatened? Well, ragtag bands of Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and unemployed campesinos hardly make for a Red Dawn scenario. And, say what you will against illegal immigrants, their cuisine is a lot better than the commies’.
2.Do we have a clear attainable objective? No immigrants at all? I’d be digging potatoes in County Mayo.
3.Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed? Mexico, I’ve been told, is paying for the costs of the wall, but there seems to be some risk that the check will get lost in the mail.
4.Have all other nonviolent policy means been fully exhausted? There are 16,600 (reasonably) nonviolent border patrol agents assigned to the region, and they are exhausted. But if we gave them some energy drinks to keep them up all night they could stand in a line along the two-thousand-mile international boundary and be only about 600 feet apart. Or we could reform our immigration process so that applicants for residency got a quick, clear answer without arrest, detention, and years of bureaucratic wrangling.
5.Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement? Other than conquering Mexico? We tried that already. Of course, if we’d left well enough alone in 1846 the people now trying to sneak across our border would be Californians. Frankly, I’d rather have the people we’re getting.
6.Have the consequences of our action been fully considered? No. If it weren’t for illegal immigrants I couldn’t find anybody to mow my lawn.
7.Is the action supported by the American people? In the “paid for” sense of supported? Considering our deficit and national debt, Americans aren’t supporting anything these days.
8.Do we have genuine broad international support? Ha! Our strongest international supporters are busy trying to get into America illegally.
Of course no doctrine is perfect. Powell himself inadvertently violated the Powell Doctrine—if unwittingly—when, as secretary of state, basing his decision on imperfect and distorted intelligence reports, he countenanced the Iraq War. (Didn’t work.)
But at least General Powell devised a rational means of thinking about a collective enterprise with an individual mind.
If we applied the Powell Doctrine rigorously to American foreign policy, I wonder how many things we’d find that are even more absurd and perilous than deploying the military to the middle of nowhere to prevent my lawn from being mowed?
On a Personal Note . . .
Colin Powell is a man I respect and admire. And I really like him too, even though I’ve met him only a few times.
I interviewed him in the early 2000s when I was working for the Atlantic and he was secretary of state. The Atlantic is a magazine that takes itself very seriously, something Secretary Powell does not. (He tells a great story about the relentless tendency of government to govern, no matter what. Shortly after he’d retired he had his initial encounter with private life air travel. He bought a first-class one-way airline ticket to New York City, at the airline ticket counter, with cash, and without a reservation. As a result, at the security checkpoint, he got a full body search and complete luggage dissection—from TSA agents who recognized him. “Hi, Secretary Powell! We’ll be done here in a moment, sir!”)
My interview—the Atlantic being the Atlantic—was supposed to be very serious, probably about the Powell Doctrine or something. But Secretary Powell likes cars and so do I, and we spent the hour in his vast, trappings-of-power secretary of state office talking about cars.
Powell is a fan of old Volvos. And my Atlantic editors were not wildly pleased when I came back with an hour-long tape-recorded on-the-record discussion of Volvo PV544s, 122s, 140s, 164s, and P1800 Ghia-bodied sport coupes.
But I thought it was valuable information. Old Volvos are an important element in certain vital security issues, such as your kids starting to drive.
Years later, when my eldest daughter turned sixteen, I got her an old Volvo—a 2007 XC70 with a hundred thousand miles on it. Of course—sixteen-year-olds being sixteen-year-olds—she had an accident. She was driving down a back road with a Toyota ahead of her and a Honda behind. A deer ran in front of the Toyota whose driver slammed on the brakes. My daughter rear-ended the Toyota, and the Honda rear-ended my daughter. The Toyota’s trunk was bashed in almost to the rear window. The Honda’s hood was crumpled up to the windshield. The Volvo? A broken taillight.
My eldest daughter is now off at college. Her younger sister is driving the XC70. And she’s about to pass it down to her kid brother.
Thank you, Colin Powell, for more than just the Powell Doctrine.
The Inaugural Address I’d Like To Hear the President—Whoever It May Be—Deliver
On January 20, 2021, the president of the United States will give his or her inaugural address.
If that president is Donald Trump, we already know this is not the kind of thing he’s any good at. And none of the prospective Democratic candidates are riveting public speakers either. But it’s a low bar. Most presidential inaugural addresses are bad.
There’ve been a few exceptions. Lincoln’s second inaugural address was a masterpiece of soaring rhetoric. “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.”
Washington’s second inaugural was a model of how all elected officials should speak. Which is briefly. His speech was 135 words long.
Most other inaugural addresses weren’t memorable. Or, if we do remember them, they don’t stand up to scrutiny.
FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” What does that even mean? A more reasonable statement at the time of Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933 would have been, “We have nothing to fear except being broke, out of a job, shoeless, hungry, and having the bank foreclose on our mortgage.”
If we hadn’t been afraid of all those things, FDR never would have gotten elected.
JFK said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” That’s worse than nonsensical, it’s wrong. National service may be an obligation during periods of extreme crisis. But the early 1960s wasn’t one—until Kennedy made it so by bungling the Cuban missile crisis. Nations exist to serve people. People do not exist to serve nations.
So I won’t listen to the inaugural address. I mean, I’ll watch it on TV. Like any good reporter I’ve got to at least pretend to keep my eye on current events, especially in case the event is Trump getting reinaugurated and he cuts an enormous word fart or Chief Justice Roberts uses the Bible to swat him instead of swear him in. But otherwise I won’t really be paying attention.
Instead, I’ll be polishing an alternative speech, an inaugural address I’d like to hear a president deliver.
It will go something like this.
My fellow Americans. I want to thank the people who voted for me. I also want to thank the people who voted against me. Democracy is meaningless if it doesn’t result from a meaningful competition between ideas—the way the college football National Championship would have been meaningless if the top-ranked college team had played the tailgaters in the Hard Rock Stadium parking lot.
Furthermore, I want to thank the people who didn’t vote. There’s no shame in not voting. In fact, if a voter is unfamiliar with the issues and uniformed about the candidates, not voting is the right thing to do. It’s a wise person who admits his or her ignorance. Over the next four years I p
romise that I frequently will be admitting my ignorance to you.
Also, a person who doesn’t vote is reminding us all that there’s a lot more more to America than its government.
And there’s more to America’s government than the person who’s the head of it. In fact, it may be that America has been giving too much power and privilege to the person who is the head of its government.
I’m the new president. But I am only an individual. And we are a nation of laws, not men and women.
Because we are a country guided by rules instead of by personalities, I’ve been reading the rule book. I’ve been studying the Constitution of the United States of America.
I intend to play by the rules. I’m the president, but you the people own this country. You are the stockholders. Your elected representatives in Congress are the board of directors. And the chairman of the board is, again, you the people. I just work here.
In the Constitution, the president of the United States isn’t even mentioned until Section 3 of Article I. And the only reason that he’s mentioned there is to explain how Congress can impeach him.
Actually, the vice president is mentioned before the president is. That’s because the vice president holds the office of president of the Senate where he has a tie-breaking vote.
Article I, Section 1, of the Constitution says, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” To judge by that, our Founding Fathers were more concerned with what goes on in the House and the Senate than what goes on in the White House. Which, incidentally, they didn’t bother to build until 1800.
The Constitution doesn’t get around to listing the powers of the president until Article II, Sections 2 and 3, and the list is only four paragraphs long.
I’m commander in chief of the military. But in Article I, Section 8, the Constitution says Congress has the power to “declare War,” to “make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water” and to “raise and support Armies.” So I guess what “commander in chief” really means is that, when the marines yell “Gung ho!” and charge, I’m supposed to go first.
I’m not looking forward to this part of the job because I’m a little concerned that the huge Secret Service motorcade with all the flashing blue lights that follows me everywhere I go will attract enemy fire.
Some people think the president is in charge of America’s foreign policy. I don’t know where they got that idea.
Yes, I’m allowed to make treaties but only “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” And two-thirds of the Senate has to agree to the treaty. Two-thirds of the Senate can’t agree on what they had for lunch in the Senate dining room.
And notice that while the Senate has the “consent” thing covered—senators love to vote on stuff—they tend to come up short on the “advice” part. The only advice a president gets from a senator is, “You should help me raise funds for my reelection campaign.”
By the way, if you’d like a little advice and consent of my own, I’d advise you to consent to be more careful about who you elect to the Senate and the House of Representatives. We’ve got some real nut buckets up on Capitol Hill.
Anyway, as I was saying, I also get to appoint my ambassadors, my cabinet, and, when the occasion arises, Supreme Court justices. Unless, of course, the Senate advises me that they won’t consent.
I have the “Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States.” Although, by custom, my major campaign donors won’t get out of jail until the very end of my second term.
But I can fix my teenage son’s speeding tickets—if he’s careful to do his speeding only inside the District of Columbia and not go over to Virginia and get arrested for speeding under a state law.
However, that huge Secret Service motorcade usually has traffic tied up in the District. So I’m afraid the kid won’t get much of a chance to speed.
Mostly what I’m supposed to do as president is, according to the Constitution, “take Care that the laws be faithfully executed.” I’m the national hall monitor.
The rest is paperwork. I can “require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices.”
And, under the Freedom of Information Act, so can the New York Times. A fat lot of good it does either of us.
Now let’s all go have some fun at the inaugural balls. I’m going to attend all of them and have a few drinks at each. If I wake up late tomorrow with a bad headache and don’t feel like working, don’t worry. My job isn’t all that important.
My Own Personal Fantasy League Presidential Election
Being, more or less, seated and clothed and in my right mind, I’m very unhappy with this presidential election. And there’s nothing I can do about it. So I’m going to give up and retreat into a fantasy life.
No matter how bad reality is you can always use your imagination. You can wish upon a star for hope and change. (Or did somebody try that already?)
Anyway, come with me to the Land of Make-Believe. Let’s pretend that a good, respectable, intelligent, decent, honest, and reasonable Democrat is running for president against a good, respectable, intelligent, decent, honest, and reasonable Republican.
Quit laughing. We’re trying to have a daydream here.
As long as we’re dreaming let’s make the Democrat a working-class guy from the rust belt, a skilled machinist for instance, who runs a small business, has to make payroll, and feels the full effects of OSHA, EPA, EEOC, Obamacare, and every other government regulatory requirement.
And—since we’re talking unicorns, flying ponies, and candy-flavored rainbows—let’s make the Republican a woman from a disadvantaged minority background.
I’ve got nothing against GOP presidential candidates being random old white males. I’m one of those myself. But it’s about time that Republicans heard from somebody—other than a Supreme Court justice or a former governor of Alaska—who knows what it feels like to be an excluded conservative outsider.
Given the direction that America’s factionalized society, partisan animosities, and identity politics are headed, everybody is going to be feeling like an excluded outsider soon. The GOP should get with the program.
But I’m talking about reality again, and I promised not to do that. Let’s get back to our castle in the air.
Suppose we’ve got these two ideal candidates. And suppose they debate each other. Do you think their debate would sound anything like the debates we’ve heard this year? That wouldn’t be a dream. That would be a nightmare.
In our imaginary perfect world there wouldn’t even be a debate moderator. (As far as I can tell the only reason we’ve had moderators in the real world debates is to bring the average IQ in the debate venue up to three figures.)
Our ideal candidates flip a coin to see who goes first, speak briefly, listen to what the other candidate says, respond to it, and don’t interrupt.
Our Republican wins the toss.
Good Republican: “The most important issues facing our nation are the federal debt and deficit. When you find yourself down in a hole, quit digging. If we don’t get government overspending under control we will end up with the soaring cost-price index and plunging economy of the “stagflation” we had in the 1970s and—heaven forbid—disco may make a comeback.
Good Democrat: I agree with my esteemed opponent about the dangers of the debt and deficit—and disco. But America has been down in this debt and deficit hole before, after World War II and after the Civil War. In both cases rapid economic growth was our ladder out. I believe the most important issue facing our nation is economic growth. I believe government has a role to play in stimulating growth through wise spending on much-needed infrastructure. And I mean wise spending—not sticking Solyndra solar panels where the sun never shines o
r building light rail to get stoned millennials back to their shared housing in downtown Portland.
GR: Yes, fixing the debt and deficit without economic growth would be like trout fishing in Death Valley. I’d stimulate the economy by cutting taxes and reduce the deficit by cutting spending. We know cutting taxes stimulates the economy. It’s so obvious even a Death Valley dead trout would understand. Having more money makes you richer. As for spending, the U.S. GDP is about $19 trillion. Combined U.S. federal, state, and local government spending is about $6.5 trillion. That’s almost a third of GDP. Oughta be enough! If you were sending a check for a third of your income every month to your stoned millennial kid in Portland, he could Uber.
GD: Fortunately, my millennial kid works in the family machine shop back in Cleveland and limits himself to a couple of beers on the weekend. However, I take your point. Unfortunately, about two-thirds of the federal budget goes to entitlement programs. And politicians from both parties have been about as willing and able as your dead trout to tackle entitlement cuts. I’d be a big liar if I said I had a quick fix for entitlement spending, even if I win majority support in the House and the Senate. Also, let us not forget that while entitlements can be—and are—abused, they also provide a lot of help to people who would be helpless without them. For example, Social Security, for all its problems, virtually eliminated severe poverty among the aged in America. Let’s be honest here, do you really want your mother-in-law living in your spare bedroom until she’s 103?
GR: You met my mother-in-law when our families went to church together. No.
GD: I also take your point about taxes, they are too high for some people. But then again, for some other people, maybe they’re not high enough. While we’re being honest, let me point out that I’m a Democrat. I will raise taxes on very rich people. Even Adam Smith, of whom you Republicans are so fond, had something to say in favor of a graduated income tax. Smith pointed out that one of the principle duties of government is to protect property. People with a lot of property should pay a higher rate of taxation because they get a higher rate of protection. Paying taxes is like paying for a guard dog. But, if you don’t have anything to guard, all you’re paying for is a stray pit bull.
A Cry from the Far Middle Page 13