You Can't Have It Both Ways, Part I

While this post's title certainly can apply to the cornucopia of conservative Republican politicians who stridently preach -- and try to legislate -- heterosexual moral values, only to be unfaithful to their wives, I'll expand the title to the Senate's entire Democratic caucus and it's puzzling position on Guantanamo Bay.

Nearly all Democrats side with President Obama, and say they want to close the detention center that operates, at best, on the law's fuzzy boundaries. Yet, when the time comes to pay for its closing, they balk and vote resoundingly against it. The Obama administration's plans on how to close the prison weren't concrete at the time, but that seemed to be used as the cover for caving to Republicans' pressure on the issue. (That caucus seems most interested in flouting the Geneva Conventions and fanning distrust, if not hatred, of the U.S.) Most humorously, the residents of Hardin, Mont., have requested Guantanamo detainees be sent to their empty private prison, yet their state's Congressional delegation immediately objected.

Why are prisons built if not to hold prisoners? Generally, places with prisons support locating them there because the area is economically depressed and people view them as a way to create jobs. As Attorney General Eric Holder has correctly noted, the country has successfully prosecuted many terrorism suspects in U.S. courts before and can do so again. Obviously, some of the people detained at Guantanamo are exceptional cases, but not so exceptional to best our capacity to give them the punishment they deserve within bounds that must be respected. Will it be easier for terrorism suspects to plot from a Supermax prison than a Cuban naval base? Does placing them anywhere on U.S. soil make it more likely other terrorists will attack those prisons, instead, of, say, the high population centers they've chosen as previous targets? Answering in the affirmative doesn't make sense.

It's strange how, even at the federal level, politicians are still subject to NIMBY-ism, and the idea that people support a solution to a problem, just not one that in any way affects them. Apparently, there is no level of representation and job security, which is stronger than prison bars for about 85 percent of congressmen, at which politicans decide they will do something in the broadest interest of the country instead of that of the usually myopic districts they represent.

The more recent, even more galling example was Barney Frank's call to G.M.'s CEO, successfully pressuring him to keep open a distribution facility in Norton, Mass., several more months than the company planned. So much for Frank's belief in the free market. The WSJ's editorial page righfully castigated him for grossly distorting the market. Behavior like this does more harm than good and means our government will more likely lose its massive investment in G.M., instead of having a chance at recouping it.

As David Brooks wrote in a column last week, "And Congressional governance is a haven for special interest pleading and venal logrolling. When the executive branch is dominant you often get coherent proposals that may not pass. When Congress is dominant, as now, you get politically viable mishmashes that don’t necessarily make sense." That's deeply disheartening.

Thanks to the Juan Maclean for the post's title.