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In Defense of Shouting at the President.
Interrupting the head of state during a prepared speech to call him a liar -- when he isn't even lying -- would be against the rules of decorum in most democratic nations. But in general, I'm all for more frequent, rowdier confrontations between the president and Congress, in part because it gives each party a chance to clarify its agenda while subjecting it to the critiques of the other. At Newsweek, John Barry writes:
The debacles of the past decade surely show how damaging is this inability to require America’s head of government to explain and defend his actions, at the time, to the legislature. Suppose President Bush had been forced to answer tough questions back in spring 2003 about his arguments for invading Iraq? Or his decision to set up Guantanamo and fill it with detainees scarfed up from faraway battlefields? Or his decision to allow the methods of interrogation that he did? The questions he never had seriously to address quickly mount up. ...The debate over President Obama’s desire to change America’s health-care system would surely have been less beset by angry fantasies, less in thrall to paranoid conspiracy-theories about ‘death panels’, if the head of government had been required, over these past months, to face Congress at intervals and answer questions about what he had in mind ?
Indeed. I'd only add that it's no accident that American presidents are treated with such deference. In post-Revolutionary America, a sizable contingent of the political elite wanted to crown George Washington king. He demurred, but there remained a conscious effort to aggrandize the president, through his clothes, seal of office, security retinue, and even the luxury of the chariot that carried him to and from events. In the 18th century, this was crucial for a new country embarking upon what looked like a naive experiment in popular democracy. But surely in 2009, as the most powerful nation on Earth, we can afford a bit more rough and tumble.
--Dana Goldstein
COMMENTS (9)
Really? In an era where we have Republicans openly insulting and defaming the president with talk of Hitler and death panels, you think less civility is okay? When the rank and file are brazenly bringing guns to protest rallies and we've already had the assassination of high profile liberals by right wing nuts this year? And I haven't even mentioned the symbolism of our first black president being openly disrespected by a party that includes Manu racists and has a long history of using racist tactics. This post strikes me as frightening misinformed.
Posted by: Brent | September 10, 2009 12:20 PM
But, of course, the president wasn't acting in his capacity as "head of state" in giving the speech to the Congress. He was acting in his political capacity. Britain has bifurcated these duties, in a queen and a prime minister. And a prime minister is regularly interrupted when speaking to parliament.
Posted by: Joe Strummer | September 10, 2009 12:39 PM
Agree completely with Brent.
It would be great if the US had a House of Commons-style debate (imagine W defending his policies!), but Wilson's outburst had more in common with town-hall shouters than coherent argument.
Posted by: Uli Kunkel | September 10, 2009 12:47 PM
Brent, I see your point. But I also think two things:
1. There's something to the Shared Space idea here, that if we're ready for the notion that someone will be shouting, we will be able to separate out different types: mood shouting (boos and cheers), angry venting ("Will the Prime Minister fire the source of the interference, fire his chief of staff?"), and slander ("You lie!" and death panels). Right now, all shouting is sort of off limits, so the ins and outs of any particular comment is less important than the fact that someone shouted.
2. I continue to be of the belief that if members of Congress were more publicly accountable for the views they hold, they would hold less crazy views. If we were in a system where one was expected to make public declarations of one's views - whether sane or crazy - those who expressed crazy views would see the kind of opposition activity that Joe Wilson is seeing today, and those who did not express crazy views would implicitly ostracize the actual crazies by virtue of their unwillingness to voice those views on national television.
Put succinctly: opportunity breeds accountability. Right now, our politicians aren't really allowed to be crazy on TV. If they were, I think the crazies would be reduced to a fringe more quickly.
Posted by: Opie Curious | September 10, 2009 12:50 PM
"But, of course, the president wasn't acting in his capacity as "head of state" in giving the speech to the Congress. He was acting in his political capacity."
Seems to me the distinction is irrelevant and artificial for the POTUS. It's called a presidential "address" because it's not a debate, and until there's a mechanism for one, Congress's task is to listen and form a reply afterwards; if they don't like it, they should remember that elections have consequences.
Posted by: Uli Kunkel | September 10, 2009 1:03 PM
who really gives a hoot? I don't think Obama really cared that anyone insulted him so why do we care? Why isn't anyone writing any articles on what was actually said by Obama last night? How about this little gem? "Add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years - less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration"
The whole country is just nuts. I have a friend who used Medicaid to get his knee repaired when he had no insurance (it was really messed up he had no cartilage) and he's completely against anything Obama does. It makes no sense!
Posted by: sam | September 10, 2009 1:24 PM
But in general, I'm all for more frequent, rowdier confrontations between the president and Congress
Okay. But let's not start pretending that we're living in a country where opponents of the president don't engage in frequent, rowdy confrontations with the President.
(Did you live in America through August? Haven't you seen Congressmen compare the president to a socialist, a fascist, an enemy who is trying to destroy the American way of life?)
There have to be some venues where political opponents can sit down and get to the business of governing. This was one of them.
Posted by: Jinchi | September 10, 2009 2:32 PM
aggrandizing the position of the president has less to do with latent monarchism in the early republic and more to do with the position of the president fulfilling two separate roles. he is at once the head of the government AND the head of state. subjecting the head of state, the person who must act as the face of the nation to the rest of the world, to humiliating heckling by his own government is something the early framers would have wanted to avoid.
Posted by: Cody | September 10, 2009 2:43 PM
This is an ignorant post, since the issue of Joe Wilson' outburst is procedural as much as it is anything else. Regardless of one's opinion of how Congresspeople ought to be able to behave, they are supposed to follow the House's Rules of Decorum and Debate. If you've got an issue with the rules, take it to your congressman. In the meantime, stop acting as though this was simply a breach of etiquette.
Posted by: nepat | September 10, 2009 3:15 PM