A Must Read on the Baker Commission

Michael Kinsley has one of the best op-eds yet written about the Baker Commission, and the Iraq War generally. He nails every theme - Bush's abdication of responsibility, Congress' abdication of responsibility, and the way democracy suffers when an anodyne, aimless and 'bipartisan' commission decides matters of war and peace. Kinsley has put his finger on a deeper, anti-political tendency in our society, which prefers independent commissions to political debates and positions. A few quotes from Kinsley's ope-ed below, the whole thing is a must read:

"Ordinarily a commission such as this has two possible purposes: action or inaction. Sometimes a problem is referred to a prestigious commission so that the commission can recommend doing things that everybody knows must be done but that nobody has the nerve to propose...On the other hand, sometimes a problem is referred to a commission simply to get it off the table. Action is widely perceived as necessary, and the creation of a commission can be made to look like action...But the Baker commission may be nearly unique in that there is no obvious solution waiting to be imposed. People actually hope that it will come up with something that no one has thought of."

"The chance that this group of aging white men, plus Vernon Jordan and Sandra Day O'Connor, will come up with something original is not enormous. It's a nutty and not very attractive idea to turn an urgent issue of war and peace over to a commission. Commissions have usually been trotted out for long-run social problems: immigration, debt, health care. Going to war is something that ought to be decided by the people we elect.Congress, in recent decades, has virtually abandoned its duty under the Constitution to make the decisions about when American soldiers are sent to kill and die."