I have the complete series of "The West Wing." I watch it now with wistfulness. We are so very far from the admittedly fictitious portrayal of life inside the White House. But the people who made it did their homework, and what they put on rubbed up against reality here and there, in terms of How Things Are Done. Outside of the personal issues, it had that genuine feel.
The series did depict how an assassination of a foreign leader might have taken place--at least, before this abomination of a president took stranglehold of all that is decent and good about our country's governance and consign it to the trash heap. I took a few minutes to find it, in Season 3.
It begins with a Situation Room meeting. The White House has learned that the Defense Minister of Qumar (fictitious Middle Eastern country), with whom the U.S. has had at least a diplomatic relationship, got caught trying to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge (Something that I believe Iran is now planning through its proxies, if they hadn't done so before. The phony and intentionally misguided missile attacks on our troops in Iraq is the same kind of ruse that this fictitious country fictitiously faked on facilities near the White House itself, hoping to draw our attention away while the real terrorism takes place across the continent. Iran knows better than to take on our firepower directly; they want us to think that it's all evened up now. It's not, and anyone with a sense of proportionality knows it.). The policy pursued is obviously on shaky, unprecedented ground, since this president has issued an executive order banning assassinations:
Leo McGarry, the President's Chief of Staff: Where did we get the wires crossed? He's meeting with the guy in the Oval Office.
Fitzsimmons, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: We didn't get the wires crossed. He was always gonna do that.
Leo: It wasn't cancelled?
Fitz: No way.
Leo: The White House cancels a meeting at the last minute.
Fitz: He's gonna have somebody testin' his food for a month.
The President walks in. There are eight people at the table, who stand. He says "hello" rather portentously. He knows why they're there.
CIA or Defense Dept. operative #1: Mr. President, we wanted to lay out some of the rules.
President (rather flippantly): There are rules to these things?
#1: Uh, yes, sir. The first one being the National Security Act, which says that only the President can trigger a covert action. This isn't a situation where you need to know as little as possible. The law requires that you know everything.
President: Doesn't the law require that I not assassinate someone?
#1: Yes. Political assassinations stand by executive order--two executive orders, as a matter of fact.
President: I know. One of them was mine.
Leo: The executive order was law but it was made up by the executive and the executive can ignore it.
President: Assume for a second I say yes. How do we do it? Fitz walks up to him with a gun?
Fitz: No, you can't do military.
President: Why not?
Fitz: The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the military from civilian law enforcement--and it can't happen on American soil.
President (shaking his head slightly): The things we choose to care about.
CIA/Defense #2: Mr. President, I should mention that if you give the order, the law insists that you inform what we call the Gang of Eight. That's the leadership on (sic) both parties in both houses, and the chairpeople and the ranking members of the two intelligence committees.
President (cutting him off): If it can't happen here, then why do we care that (Qumari Defense Minister) was delivering himself?
Fitz: He's flying back tonight in his Gulfstream. The pilot will be one of our people. They'll experience a mechanical failure about 90 minutes into the flight, and set down in a remote airstrip in Bermuda. It's really not much more than a road in the grass.
President: The British say yes?
Fitz: Yes, sir.
President: How many over there know about this?
Fitz: Three.
President: And some people in Bermuda.
Fitz: Yes, sir.
Leo: This is as big as the club gets, all right?
President: Okay. Well, surely, this is the most absurd meeting I've ever sat in, and friends, that is saying something. (Gets up to leave; all stand)
Defense/CIA #3: Sir, will you be exchanging gifts with [minister] when you meet this afternoon?
President: Yeah, I'd imagine.
#3: We'd like you to give him this (reaches behind; brings a pen over to President)
President: What does the pen do, squirt poison?
#2: It's got a small recording device in there. He'll probably throw it in the trash, but you never know: You might get lucky. He sticks it in his breast pocket for the flight home.
President: (With a knowing look at Leo, he drops it on the table)
#3: Sir?
President: Tell them to put it in a box. (Leaves; scene ends)
Okay, so--This president is actually injecting some gallows cynicism into the situation. Would you be happy with that? Or is he trying to fight off the reality that even he can't believe he's now involved in? He's about to enter a high-stakes problem that by its very nature involves situational ethics. He's not happy about it.
Think, too, of the legal justification. This president has to pull an executive order he's already issued to justify an assassination. That means that the president has the power of life and death over someone who threatens the republic, no questions asked (although questions will be asked; back to you a bit later). No court has ruled upon it; it's based on intelligence. Are you happy with that? It doesn't make executive orders look very solid, does it?
For Congress to nullify a law it had passed, it has to go through the entire law-making process: committees, hearings, mark-ups. It takes months, but it's absolutely necessary in order for federal marshals to stop enforcing it. On the other hand, to nullify an executive order that has equivalent legal standing, all a president has to do is either sign a piece of paper or just shake his head. That looks, well, monarchical.
And someone has had to reach all the way back to 1878, to a law passed just after Reconstruction ended, to provide legal cover. No Congress has nullified it, so it's still enforceable. But it's now the 21st Century, and the reasoning behind it could be considered arcane. Isn't this the ends justifying the means, to put active meaning into words that grew to have none?
This will have three parts. Part 2 will be tomorrow. Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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