Politics, Governance: Widening Gap?

Rarely has American politics seemed so utterly divorced from actual governance as it has been in the Elian Gonzalez case over the last few days. And, at least on foreign policy, that chasm is likely to widen during this election year.

In theory, Vice President Al Gore is a part of the Clinton administration--in fact, its second-ranking official. But after federal agents belatedly returned the boy to his father Saturday, Gore once again disassociated himself from the administration he supposedly helps to lead.

“As I have said, I believe this issue should have been handled through a family court and with the family coming together,” Gore said in a written statement.

That raises the question: Why doesn’t Gore resign, since he has decided his political interests outweigh his duties as vice president to defend and speak for the administration? Gore is certainly not the first vice president to cut himself loose from an administration. For example, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey broke with Lyndon B. Johnson’s policies toward Vietnam in the final weeks of the 1968 campaign.

In fairness to Gore, the Republicans have been no less politically motivated in their remarks on the Gonzalez case. George W. Bush condemned the Miami raid more harshly than did Gore, although it’s unclear how Bush, if he were president, would have handled the case differently. Would he have let the Miami relatives defy the law for a longer period of time?

As Gore distances himself from the administration, many others in lower ranks are leaving it. As the administration’s political appointees--that is, the outsiders brought in to make the career bureaucrats follow the president’s priorities--have moved on, their jobs have been taken over by career government officials.

At the State Department, for example, James P. Rubin, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s spokesman, is leaving, to be replaced by Richard Boucher, a foreign service officer who held the same job in 1992 when George Bush was president. Susan Shirk, the deputy assistant secretary of State for China policy, is returning this summer to her teaching position at UC San Diego; Darryl Johnson, a China specialist in the foreign service, will replace her.

Often, the career officials have more experience in government than the political appointees they are replacing. But these civil servants also realize a new administration will take power in January, and so they understandably hold up on initiatives that require long-term political direction.

In foreign policy, what was once a fully staffed administration is now dwindling down to Clinton, National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger and a few other top-level political appointees presiding over the large federal bureaucracy.

Still, as the Elian case shows, the obituaries being written about the administration are premature.

Politically, the administration has faded, but legally it will remain in charge of the federal government for nine months. And the federal government remains as powerful and important as ever.

So we have a paradox: Those who actually run the federal government won’t be accountable to voters, while the politicians who face the voters bear no responsibility for the actions of the federal government.

The problem with such an arrangement is that foreign policy doesn’t stop for 18-month-long presidential campaigns.

Last week, the administration approved a new package of U.S. arm sales to Taiwan. Does Gore agree or disagree with this decision? We don’t even know if his opinion matters since, on the evidence of the Elian case, he’s not really part of the administration any more.

Over the next few months, the administration will have to decide whether to go forward with construction of a missile-defense system, a far-reaching decision with implications for arms control and for relations with Russia and China.

The administration may also confront momentous decisions about peace in the Middle East, as well as the predictably recurring crises in North Korea and Iraq.

Yet there’s not much sign these issues will be discussed in the campaign. And if they are, it’s of little consequence, because there’s no political accountability. Bush holds no federal office, and Gore can always say he disagrees with the decisions of his own administration.

What the Elian case tells us is that our country now has, at the same time, a powerful lame-duck government and a couple of office seekers who won’t be held responsible for its actions.