Truth commission finds an unlikely ally in Jones

The media and punditry have paid a lot of attention to where the Republican party goes from here, in the wake of that party's losses in 2006 and 2008. But one of the most interesting stories involving a Republican elected official has largely been ignored. Two weeks ago, Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) signed on as a co-sponsor of John Conyer's bill to create a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties (the 3rd district, which Jones represents, is shaded green in the map shown above).

What makes Jones' support for the bill especially surprising is that he has a very conservative voting record, and was actually the original sponsor of the bill that renamed french fries as "Freedom Fries" in the House cafeteria just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But as the country learned more about pre-war intelligence, Jones became a harsh critic of the war, and in 2005, he joined Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Ron Paul (R-TX) to co-sponsor a bill calling for a withdrawal from Iraq by 2006. When a reporter asked him to explain why he changed his mind about Iraq, he said: "If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong."

To understand Jones' perspective, it is important to understand that his district is one of the most military-oriented congressional districts in the country, as it is home to several Marine bases: Camp Lejeune and the New River Air Station in the Jacksonville area, and Cherry Point Air Station in Havelock. Of the 17,000 troops President Obama recently announced he would be sending into Afghanistan, 8,000 of them are Marines shipping out of Camp Lejeune. So there only a few other districts where the human costs of the two wars have been felt as much as they have in North Carolina's 3rd. I spend a lot of time at the area's beaches, and on a recent trip, the folks at the seafood market asked me if I had been in Iraq. I was confused at first, and then realized that was a good assumption since I was wearing cargo shorts and a buzz cut, and I said, "no, no, I'm just a wannabe."

It is going to be interesting to see what comes out of the current push for a commission or other investigation into the Bush administration's war on terror policies. The NY Times has a great article about the different forms this commission could take. While I definitely support the idea in principle, the Democrat and Obama supporter in me fears that it could backfire if there isn't enough support from key Republicans. If the Republican leadership successfully blocks major parts of Obama's policy agenda between now and the 2010 midterm elections (think health care and clean energy/climate change policies), and the truth commission ends up dominating the headlines, it would give the GOP an opening to claim that Obama and the Congressional Democrats are stuck in the past, and don't have bipartisan solutions to the problems we face. I think this is what Obama fears, and that's why he's saying he is more interested in "looking forward" than in "looking backwards" at Bush's war on terror.

That said, there's another scenario where a truth commission could help everyone. I don't think the GOP will be able to take the presidency again until its leaders admit that many of the problems we face require some sort of federal regulation/intervention (like health care and climate change), and separate themselves from Bush and Cheney, who will continue to represent the party in the minds of a whole generation of voters for the foreseeable future. So from that perspective, supporting a truth commission might be the smartest thing McCain, Graham, Steele and other prominent Republicans could do right now. But I won't be holding my breath.

"To Investigate or Not - Four Ways to Look Back at Bush" [New York Times]

UPDATED 2/26/08: It turns out that Obama's going to announce his Iraq withdrawal plan from Camp Lejeune on Friday.