Hang Right Politics

Posted by Big Mo on April 4th, 2007 in Constitution, Democrats

Nancy Pelosi has gone too far. She needs to be removed as speaker of the House.

Her “visit” to Damascus to conduct in Congressman Tom Lantos words “an alternative Democratic foreign policy” is an utterly gross violation of the Constitution. No congressperson may conduct foreign policy for any reason except for a declaration of war. Senators may be involved with foreign policy more intimately than representatives because they are involved in treaties and negotiations. Neither of these precludes foreign trips; just the actual conduction of foreign policy.

Only the president and the executive branch carries out foreign policy of the United States—regardless of who the president is or what party he belongs to. Congress can either work with the president or work against the president, but it cannot ever conduct its own foreign policy. That is simply not acceptable, and utterly unconstitutional.

Please, spare me the protests that GOP reps visited Syria recently too. Listen up: They didn’t go there with a different message than Bush’s. They didn’t go there with an “alternative Democratic foreign policy,” like Pelosi did. (I’m also aware that there is a claim that she may have, or could have, been involved in some way with the release of the British prisoners. If so, I await the media calls for an investigation like the Dems did about Reagan and the phony claims of an October surprise a la the hostage crisis of 1979-1980.)

Our ignorant, Democrat-cheerleading media either won’t notice or care, and Democrats are so power-hungry that all they care for is anything that undermines the Bush administration—even if it means destroying the government in the process.

For proof that what she and her party is doing is so outrageous, I give you none other than the father of the Constitution, James Madison, who explained the necessity for the separation of powers in Federalist #51:

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

From Federalist #53, speaking on House members:

And although the House of Representatives is not immediately to participate in foreign negotiations and arrangements, yet from the necessary connection between the several branches of public affairs, those particular branches will frequently deserve attention in the ordinary course of legislation, and will sometimes demand particular legislative sanction and co-operation.

And in a speech on June 8, 1789, to the House, proposing the Bill of Rights:

The powers delegated by this constitution, are appropriated to the departments to which they are respectively distributed: so that the legislative department shall never exercise the powers vested in the executive or judicial; nor the executive exercise the powers vested in the legislative or judicial; nor the judicial exercise the powers vested in the legislative or executive departments.

How does this apply? The Democrats are unable to control themselves, and are attempting to bypass the executive branch by micromanaging the war and, by their own words, conducting their own foreign policy.

Now let’s look at the Constitution itself. (This really should be elemental stuff. But given today’s educational system and wretched ignorance in the media, it sadly isn’t.) Does Article I give the Congress any authority to conduct foreign affairs? No. Other than declaring war, ratifying treaties brought before the Senate, regulating commerce with foreign nations and a few minor things, the Congress has no business setting foreign policy. Under Article II, the executive is the commander in chief of the military, has the authority to negotiate treaties, appoint ambassadors, and appoint the heads of executive departments, including the State Department (not named in Article II), which is part of the executive department. The executive is also the one to receive ambassadors and foreign ministers. In other words, per the Constitution, foreign affairs is the purview of the executive—not Congress.

So…What Speaker Pelosi and her delegation did was utterly unconstitutional.

A typical Democrat and liberal charge over the last six years is that Bush has been “shredding” the Constitution, yada, yada, yada, without any real basis for making the charge other than political differences with, and unbridled hatred for, President Bush.

But this move to conduct their own foreign policy is both dangerous and seriously harmful to the long-term health of the United States.

Please note: If, say, Reps. Newt Gingrich or Denny Hastert, or Sen. Bob Dole or Trent Lott had traveled to another country—ostensibly a hostile one—during the 1990s with an express purpose of undermining the foreign policy of President Bill Clinton by propagating an “alternative Republican foreign policy” I would be condemning that just as loudly.

Pelosi and her Democrats have to be stopped. Unfortunately, the only ones truly in a position to do it, Bush and the GOP, need to have the stones to it. The impending veto is a start. But it’s only a start. The rest of us will need to work hard to throw these usurpers out of office in two years.