Originally posted by Dan Nixon:
Senators can and should still dissent, but not in front of the camera if it involves progress in an ongoing war. Checks still remain and the constitution is not trampled here. If they suspect a problem at Gitmo, they can order an inquiry from Senate chambers. If they think we are losing, they can present their case along with solutions to the appropriate committes, the Pentagon, the President. They still fund the war, they can still impeach.




Let's look at your proposal:

You say that Congress could still order an inquiry, have a conference with the president, or legislate about the war. But they could not criticize the war in front of the cameras. Your goal is to keep congressional criticism of the war away from the ears of the insurgents.

It's a bad idea, Dan. Your proposal would not acheive your goal, and it would be horribly destructive to our democracy.

First of all, any inquiry or conference or legislation would be on the public record. It would be widely reported in the press, and commented upon by every talking head on the planet (except for our elected representatives, under your proposal). So any congressional opposition to the war would be circulated far and wide, just the same as today. Your proposal might eliminate televised anti-war sound bites by congressmen, but those sound bites would still find their way into the media stream. So I don't see how your proposal would be all that effective at keeping congressional criticism of the war away from the insurgents' ears.

Now look at what you would be sacrificing. Americans would not get to hear their representatives publicly express any negative opinion of the war. The very people we elected to speak on our behalf would be voiceless (at least on television, the most important forum available). That means every voter who opposes the war would also be voiceless.

Your proposal would also restrict congress' ability to influence public opinion. In other words, it would make our leaders less able to lead us. For example: just assume for a moment that some crazy president with beady eyes and dislexic speech patterns (any resemblance to Dubya is stricly unintentional) started an extremely ill-advised war that was harmful to American interests (any resemblance to Bush's war in Iraq is unintentional). Under your proposal, Joe Voter could not turn on his TV and hear his representative say the war was wrong. Given the way Joe Voter relies on TV news, he might never learn the truth.

This is extremely important: our representatives have used their free speech rights before to help curb some of our government's worst mistakes (The Vietnam war, and McCarthyism, just to name two). Yet you would give up this fundamental tool of representative government, and cripple your representative's abilty to do his job, just because you think the insurgents might be encouraged by congressional criticism of the war? Wow, that is true extremism, Dan.