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No matter who gets elected, there will be change. Every administration is at least slightly different, but whether you love it or despise it, very little of what has marked the Bush executive will survive after 20 January, even if the next president is McCain .
As immovable and impervious as it seems to be, the bureaucracy will be dominated by a different crew than it has today. Almost unique among democracies, the United States permits the president to appoint not just the top leaders of his departments but those deep in the organizations as well. His authority in the executive branch is enormously wide-ranging, and he makes thousands of appointments, so many and so subject to the whims of the Senate that eight years after first taking the oath of office, many positions have still not been filled.
And it is the Congress that should command your attention. If Obama is elected and, as some observers predict, the next Senate will be overwhelmingly sympathetic to his appointments, Obama will have no trouble getting his people into the bureaucracy, and it may happen with a rapidity seen only in those rare instances in which the numbers make it easy to roll to confirmation without too much debate.
The same thing may be true of domestic legislation, too, but even if the entirety of both houses and the president were the same party, there may still be sufficient ideological diversity to prevent some of the more destructive foolishness that we fear. Yes, the Congress has a short memory and its members are often overwhelmed by self-aggrandizement and ideological fervor, but one hopes that advice from smart people will be successful in preventing emotion from overcoming logic. The focus needs to be on the margins, where small changes can produce salubrious effects without the attendant dislocations that we are experiencing now. Then again, you never know. We have had dysfunctionally high---and low---marginal tax rates that produced hideous economic results; wasteful programs---supported by Republicans and Democrats alike---that did nothing but enrich a few citizens; and regulatory behavior antithetical to the public interest. I suppose we really are at the mercy of our politicians.
As for national security, there is tremendous irony. The system with which this nation was endowed was one of civilian control of the military. And this was reinforced by the Defense Reorganization Act that created the Department of Defense after World War II. Fearful of a large defense establishment with sufficient power to command the rest of us, we don't ever want to see a serving military person as the Commander-in-Chief, even in wartime. But if the last few years teaches us anything, it is that we have as much to fear---or perhaps more---from the civilians. None of the extreme national security proposals espoused makes any sense strategically, and the smart money should be on the establishment of sensible strategic objectives and the practical tactics to achieve them.
And the role of the military: execute all orders that are not immoral or illegal. But one hopes that our military leaders will also do something they have not done in recent memory: prevent us from doing anything stupid.
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Thanks. As much as an extremist as I am---and as we all tend to be on some subjects, especially as we get older---I find it useful to cut to basics, something we all learned as brand new soldiers.
