Think American confidence in the presidency is low? The public is even less confident in Congress. And that is also a result of the President Bush’s leadership.
Gallup conducts an annual poll of American confidence in 16 different societal institutions ranging from the military to religion, business to labor, the medical system to HMOs, news to government, and a few others in between. The confidence rate was measured by totaling up those who said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in each institution. According to a June 2007 Gallup poll, the presidency has only a 25% confidence level and that’s in the middle of the pack- 9th out of 16. Congress came in dead last at 14%

As you can see, the legislative branch has not done well the last few years but the presidency has done so poorly that what was nearly a 30 point gap between the two branches in 2002 has shrunk to 10 points. Even the Supreme Court has lost significant confidence.

At the start of the Bush administration, Congress’ confidence rating was 26% and that has been nearly cut in half to 14% since. This was under a Republican-led Congress and presidency. Because of this, President Bush effectively became the party’s leadership and set the agenda and tone for the entire government. Mix in the fact that he also named two new Supreme Court justices, named one of them the new Chief Justice, and you have the entire government being largely led by one man and one party.

President Bush and the Republican party took advantage of all that power to synchronize policy and politics in an effort to secure not only their policy objectives, but the dream of a permanent Republican majority in Congress. This effort resulted in previously politically independent positions promoting political agendas instead of executing their jobs in the manner and spirit intended. The more recent examples of this have come from the Justice Department and the Office of the Surgeon General. This has politicized the government bureaucracy to such a degree that Americans have lost significant confidence in all three branches.

The more politically charged every single aspect of governing has become, the less we trust them to govern well. The Republican party’s attempt to develop a permanent majority has backfired. The Bush administration has politicized all aspects of the executive branch by attempting to have policy and politics work in sync like a well-tuned political machine. By ensuring that presidential appointees place allegiance to President and party ahead of the integrity of their position, the Constitution, and the nation, the Bush administration has undermined not only the confidence we have in him, but in the entire government.

I’ll admit it. I never understood how someone who is legally living in the U.S. can suddenly become an “enemy combatant” and held without charge in a U.S. Navy Brig. Isn’t there supposed to be due process? The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals thinks so.

Thanks to The Blog of Legal Times for highlighting this recent legal opinion on Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari man who was legally in the U.S. on a student visa. In a 2-1 decision, Judge Diana Motz wrote the majority opinion parsing some of the convoluted legal reasoning the Bush administration uses in declaring enemy combatant status.

We recognize the understandable instincts of those who wish to treat domestic terrorists as ‘combatants’ in a ‘global war on terror’. Allegations of criminal activity in association with a terrorist organization, however, do no permit the Government to transform a civilian into an enemy combatant subject to indefinite military detention, any more than allegations of murder in association with others while in military service permit the government to transform a civilian into a soldier subject to trial by court martial.

Judge Motz eventually tied the majority decision to the notion that upholding presidential power to order the military to seize and detain civilians indefinitely would “render lifeless the Suspension Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the rights to criminal process in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments.”

In writing the minority opinion, Judge Hudson dissented largely based on the Supreme Court precedent set in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. I’m not troubled that he dissented based on recent precedent but rather that he undermines his own argument when he notes that

Given the unconventional nature of the conflict that the United States is engaged in with al Qaeda, the exact definitions of ‘enemy combatants’ and ‘enemy belligerents’ are difficult to conceptualize and apply with precision.

How are detainees to prove that they are not an enemy combatant? Since the government can declare someone an enemy combatant by fiat, I would imagine it’s nearly impossible to prove that you are not an enemy combatant when being one is “difficult to conceptualize and apply precisely.”