Matters of Church and State

BRING IN THE CLOWNS

          If you hadn’t paid attention to the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense, you missed the stuff of great comedy, albeit exceedingly dark comedy.  Not to worry, just read Walter Pincus’s column in today’s Washington Post.  He brilliantly captures the silliness of it all.

         For those who don’t subscribe to the Washington Post, Walter Pincus is a national security columnist for the Post.  He has won a number of journalism awards and is always a refreshing and enlightening read.

         As Pincus explains, the committee was loaded for bear because of Hagel’s past comments about the intimidating influence of the Israeli lobby on members of Congress and also because of his past comments on Iran.  In high dudgeon over the charges that it is unduly influenced by the Israeli lobby, the committee plunged ahead to validate and underscore that charge.  It was a perfect example of – if I may paraphrase Shakespeare:  “The committee did protest too much, methinks."

         For example, when Senator Lindsey Graham asked Hagel to “name one person, in your opinion, who is intimidated by the Israeli lobby in the United States Senate,” Pincus, who is Jewish, suggests that the one answer could have been: “the two of us: Graham … by asking such a silly gotcha question, and Hagel for not standing up for his past words….”  Later, when Graham asked Hagel “to name one dumb thing we’ve been goaded into doing because of the pressure from the Israeli or Jewish lobby,” the answer should have been ‘a good part of today’s eight-hour hearing’.”

         Every member of Congress probably likes to think of himself or herself as above the fray and not susceptible of being unduly influenced, let alone intimidated, by lobbyists.  But that is ludicrous on the face of it and on the record.  Look at the influence of the NRA on gun policy, the Catholic Church on health policy, Wall Street on business policies, the list is endless.  Trying to influence Congress is what lobbyists do, and some are better at it than others.  According to Pincus, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) proudly claims that it is “consistently ranked as the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol Hill.”

         This column is not primarily about AIPAC or other lobbying groups.  It’s about Congress, in this case one of its most important Senate committees.  The committee spent virtually no time asking Hagel about national defense issues facing the U.S. going forward, as current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and others have pointed out.  Issues such as Afghanistan, terrorism, the looming threat of sequestration on the Pentagon budget, cyber security, and so on and so on.

         Instead, it spent virtually all the time defending its bruised egos.  And, sadly as a result, as Pincus states, “Thursday’s hearing was a perfect illustration of why the public has such a low opinion of Congress and why Americans should be concerned that the legislative branch often seems no longer to be playing a serious role in government.”

Jerry