Friday, June 06, 2003
I was reading this article "Weapons of Mass Deception" on Salon.com and got to thinking about our political system of debate. In the opening paragraphs, the article describes Vice-President Cheney reassuring assembled legislators that the administration based the war in Iraq on credible evidence. Further into the article, it observes that Cheney was orating to "a room full of loyal Republican officials" which made me think this was a public relations move and not an open forum for debate about WMD evidence. But where would such a debate take place in our government?
I'm under the impression that in the British Parliamentary system, the Prime Minister must face parliamentary questioning every Wednesday. It can be contentious, it can be rude, but it serves to present a forum where government positions must be elucidated in public. This, at the very least, seems to engender some erudite politicians. On the other hand, the major public forum for issues in the U.S. seems to be in the media and that's proven to be not as rigorous a debate as we see in British politics. There are reports of the Democrats calling for inquiries into intelligence leading to the war but for some reason, it doesn't have the same potency as a public debate. One might argue this is a matter of giving the public what they want and apparently, the American public isn't interested in debating these sort of issues. My concern is whether our lawmakers are concerned about it and how that debate is being exercised in our government.
</Aurelius> <!--9:24 AM-->
