Despising Democracy

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is great here — he’s calling out Bush’s EPA chief for being evasive in a Senate hearing.  The specific issue involves how a bunch of large states want to regulate carbon pollution and the EPA won’t let them.  EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson is on the defensive about it, and keeps trying to run out the clock on inconvenient questions by delving into the minutae of administrative law.  Whitehouse let him have it.

But one thing I wish some senator would do is specifically point out how contemptuous it is of democracy when administration officials (see here and here for examples, among countless others) avoid answering questions before Congress.  These right-wing Republicans who see themselves as the nation’s true patriots — the true lovers of freedom, in contrast to the unAmerican liberals — often show approximately zero interest in having honest, direct discourse with the people’s elected representatives.

Democracy depends on transparency.  If we don’t know what’s going on, we can’t exercise power — either at the ballot box or through other means.  And if our elected representatives don’t know what’s going on, they can’t make day-to-day decisions on our behalf.

That means, in essence, that administrators who evade the questions of Congress are evading the accountability of the American people.  These folks do not love democracy; they despise it.

So whenever you see an administration official trying to spin Congress or evade its questions, remember that it’s not just about one guy being a jerk.  It’s about a culture that simply assumes democracy is mere rhetoric and not worth practicing in reality.