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Thoughts on John McCain as our constitutional dictator

By Jack M. Balkin

I have been arguing, of course, that we should recognize the extent to which we are in the process of selecting someone to serve in an office that on occasion will take on overtones of "constitutional dictatorship": decisions may have to be made in relatively short order with extremely significant consequences, including in some cases life and death, for others. There are no clear criteria for selecting who is fit for that high office. At the end of the day, one is inevitably going to have to rely on hunches about temperment and judgment when selecting who is best fit to serve as our "constitutional dictator."

It surely will surprise no one to learn that I believe that John McCain has revealed even more why no one should look with equanimity at the prospect of his becoming our potential constitutional dictator. I repeat the final paragraph of the George Will column I quoted a couple of days ago:

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

If one needs further proof of what is most scary about John McCain , it is provided by his grandstanding yesterday and today. The reason for my concern is linked to my previous post about the non-"authority" of George W. Bush. Well, folks, the same is true of both McCain and Obama, as a matter of fact. Neither of them has anything whatsoever to contribute to the negotiations going on right now, at least if one takes seriously the repeated argument that we are in a crisis that demands an immediate solution, and that the solution should be hammered out by people who really know what they're talking about (and are not engaged in crass political calculation). John McCain, by his own admission, knows very little about economics in general and, I am confident, about complex financial institutions in particular. His only contact with them was as a participant in the corruption generated by Charles Keating and Lincoln Savings. So, if we assume that the negotiations involve knowledgeable people, including Paulson, Bernanke, Barney Frank, Charles Shumer, and others, including, no doubt, Republican representatives and senators, McCain has nothing userful to add. Obama has many, many strengths, but I am not aware that knowledge of the intricacies of financial institutions is one of them. So Obama has nothing useful to add. It is as if one asked them their views about whether the new super-collider in Switzerland should shut down several months in order to engage in relevant repairs. There are people who know the answer, or at least the range of probabilities of different courses of conduct, but I am absolutely confident that neither McCain nor Obama is one of them. Both totally lack what philosophers call "epistemic authority," i.e., relavent knowledge about the topic under discussion. And that is true about the delicacies of responding to the ostensible financial crisis.

Only one of the two candidates insisted on flying down to Washington and potentially hijacking the negotiations while depriving the public of an opportunity to see him answer relevant questions in the presence of his opponent. The other, as is appropriate, waited to be asked and accepted the President's invitation. If John McCain had a horse, he would have ridden it to Washington (after chatting with Katie Couric instead of keeping his date with David Letterman) and fully revealed his caesarist persona. Both, of course, can say that the proposed deal(s) threaten to wreck their presidencies, which is an interesting and important political observation, but it is irrelevant to resolving the present crisis, IF one believes there really is a crisis. If the entire future of the American economy is at stake, then, to paraphrase John Kennedy, we must be prepared to pay any price, including condemning lots of children to inadequate medical care in the future. If, of course, one believes that there are elements of hype in the description of the oncoming "cataclysm," that's another matter entirely, and those who believe that should explain to the public--and not to their colleagues around a negotiating table--why that is the case.

If it was relevant to have people from the McCain and Obama campaigns there, they should have been their leading economic advisers, who presumably have some epistemic authority. Otherwise, they could answer at the debate--assuming that McCain is not simply a coward who will do whatever he can to avoid answering tough questions (beginning with his "country first" rationale for naming Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat away from succeeding a 72-year-old torture and cancer survivor)--what they see as the consequences for their presidencies of whatever deal might have been accepted (or the consequences if no deal is reached). Will McCain really continue to argue that he can cut taxes while the US takes on $700 billion of new commitments? Would any person take him seriously if he did? For that matter, can Obama really believe that these new commitments won't require increasing taxes on at least some people who make less than $250,000/year? These are questions that the public very much is entitled to know.

Barack Obama has taken some heat for being "prematurely presidential" by going to Europe and receiving the acclaim of millions. But John McCain has behaved in a far more ominous "prematurely presidential" way by forgetting that he has not yet been elected to the office and that he does not know enough to contribute usefully to the discussions. This is both shameful and shameless. But, as I asked before, does the man even know any more what honor and shame are about, in his zeal to achieve his lifetime ambition of becoming President, whatever it takes?

Yes, this is a rant, but, yes, I'm angry and depressed at the debasement of our politics that are now indelibly associated with the McCain campaign. He once promised something quite different. Was he always a fraud, or has this developed only late in his 72-year life when consumed by ambition?

UPDATE: The New York Times has just posted a story on the potential stalling of the bailout, in large part because of revolt by House Republicans. Key paragraphs include:

?My hope is that we can get a deal,? said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, hours after House and Senate negotiators had announced that an accord was at hand. President Bush had hoped that an agreement could be announced after the late-afternoon meeting.

Mr. Dodd, looking tired and annoyed, complained that the late complications were making the episode sound more like ?a rescue plan for John McCain,? the Republican presidential candidate, than one for the financial system.

It does no good, Mr. Dodd said, ?to be distracted for two or three hours by political theater.?

The senator was apparently alluding to a growing revolt by conservative Republicans, and the fact that Mr. McCain had not yet endorsed the plan, whose concept runs contrary to the policy positions he has taken.

Well, yes, Sen. Dodd is a Democrat, and perhaps one should be at least a bit suspicious. But maybe he is "putting country first" and is justifiably angry on Sen. McCain's theatrics. And the question remains: On what epistemic basis will Sen. McCain decide whether or not to support the plan? Will he consult with Sarah Palin or his new-found Christian Right friends? With "elitist" professors of economics? .....

FURTHER UPDATE: Just as I began thinking that perhaps I had gone over the deep end in my rant, I read the following article that will presumably be in tomorrow's New York Times. It begins as follows:

Senator John McCain had intended to ride back into Washington on Thursday as a leader who had put aside presidential politics to help broker a solution to the financial crisis. Instead he found himself in the midst of a remarkable partisan showdown, lacking a clear public message for how to bring it to an end.

At the bipartisan White House meeting that Mr. McCain had called for a day earlier, he sat silently for more than 40 minutes, more observer than leader, and then offered only a vague sense of where he stood, according to people in the meeting.

In subsequent television interviews, Mr. McCain suggested that he saw the bipartisan plan that came apart at the White House meeting as the proper basis for an eventual agreement, but he did not tip his hand as to whether he would give any support to the alternative put on the table by angry House Republicans, with whom he had met before going to the White House.

He said he was hopeful that a deal could be struck quickly, and that he could then show up for his scheduled debate on Friday night against his Democratic rival in the presidential race, Senator Barack Obama. But there was no evidence that he was playing a major role in the frantic efforts on Thursday night on Capitol Hill to put a deal back together again.

If this is "leadership," I'll eat my hat (and a lot of crow). It sounds like a scared and desperate politician, faced with severe divisions in his own party, trying to figure out how best to save his political hide. I'm not sure what role "putting country first" is playing in Senator McCain's calculations, but I'm not optimistic. Perhaps Sen. McCain has decided to accept Bill Kristol's advice to torpedo the bailout and run as an all-out populist (and, who knows, maybe McCain would be correct to do so IF one believes that Paulson and Bernanke (and Barney Frank) are simply engaging in hype and there is, in reality, no real crisis and need for immediate action). But if McCain believes it's all (or largely) hype, let him say so and break sharply with his erstwhile friend, George W. Bush, whose enabler he has been for the past four years (since he decided not to accept John Kerry's offer to run for VP with Kerry).

Why anyone at this point would trust John McCain about anything is beyond me.

Full post as published by Balkinization on September 25, 2008 (boomark / email).