WANT TO amend the Constitution of the United states without actually saying so? Just do it informally--not by design but by accident. Call this addition to the Constitution's legislative, executive, and judicial branches special prosecutors, and have them launch witch hunts in all directions.
Twice now this year, the more partisan members of his own party have asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to go after the previous administration's scandal-haunted presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, who lost the election but can yet win the post-election review if it continues. Which is just what a Republican congressman from Ohio, the Hon. Jim Jordan, proposes. Why? Because he says it looks like there's more than enough evidence to go after Ms. Clinton, to which the sage and prudent--and honest--attorney general of the United States replied: "'Looks like' is not enough of a basis to appoint a special counsel." For once unleashed, these special prosecutors can prove a plague upon the land, devouring everything and everyone in their sights.
Does anybody else remember Kenneth Starr and the havoc he wreaked, destroying anyone and any prudent precedent in his free-roaming way? It was great theater, perhaps, but no way to run a government except into the ground. So now these unabashed partisans would have Congress play this number once again, this time from the top with even more feeling. Please, spare all of us a replay of that jaded number. Who needs it?
Well, maybe the Hon. Donald Trump, who keeps urging the Justice Department to investigate its investigations of Ms. Clinton. But isn't this the same Donald J. Trump who is president and chief executive of the federal government? If he wants something investigated, surely he has enough tools at his disposal to investigate it himself, or have his many subordinates do so. Why hand the job off to a special investigator, further cluttering the organizational chart of the U.S. government? Isn't this where we all came in? Let's get the hook and end this song and dance now if not sooner.
It's enough to make one wonder if some of these so-called conservatives are immune to experience, which should be their constant guide, rather than theory. Demonstrating that even a blind hog can come up with an acorn now and then, a separate but equally partisan congressman across the aisle--Michigan's John Conyers--observes: "What strikes me about these comments is the president's view that the criminal justice system serves him and not the public."
And how many times must this country, faced with challenges similar to those weathered in the past, demonstrate how little it has been learned from that past, and so set up a repeat of the past's failures? Even as the after-effects of the Great Recession are still being felt, America's household debt is reaching a record high, setting the stage for one more boom sure to bust. American manufacturers are revving up their engines across the board, producing everything from bulldozers to semi-conductors to all kinds of foodstuffs. Employment is way up--for now--as factories have added 156,000 workers to their payrolls since the election of this president. It's a dramatic and undeniable turnaround from the last year of the previous administration when some 16,000 jobs were lost.
But why add a whole new branch of government to what is being manufactured from whole cloth? Enough already. Enough over-confidence and under-solid performance. For this latest boom is built on pillars of sand, much like this latest addition to the constitutional structure.
Editorial on 11/20/2017