Maintaining troop morale aids a war effort. But who created the myth that a president’s fallen standing in a democracy can have negative battlefield consequences?

Think of it. Imagine you’re running an enemy action in Iraq or Afghanistan. If you have online access or media contacts, you know the president’s approval rating has fallen to 36%. Then you hear Congress has censured him. What’s your response?

a) You declare victory and go home.
b) You’re so delighted that you figure out how to capture the entire US Army and do so.
c) You think: so what? There’s still bullets whizzing over my head.”
d) You consider it a moral victory but still have those bullets whizzing by daily.
e) You see no strategic difference in your military position and continue to fight day to day.
f) You come out of your hidey-hole in the mountains of Pakistan, make a video that says “Neener-neener” in Arabic, then see your shadow and return to your hidey-hole for 6 more weeks.
g) You notice all the US troops are weeping for Bush and conduct a surprise raid, killing them all.
h) You figure “If I persist long enough, they’ll impeach Bush, Cheney, Hastert and every successor until they get to a military veteran Democrat, who’ll promptly surrender.”

So why is a verbal reprimand so damaging to our war effort?

Korea wasn’t stalemated because Truman was criticized. Vietnam wasn’t lost because Nixon nearly was impeached.

If Bush declared martial law and suspended Constitutional protections, a good case might be made that he has that option. But when he already has the option to wiretap potential terrorists, immediately, with oversight later, what rationale exists that makes his unconstitutional lawbreaking okie-dokie?

There’s nothing to support that claim. There’s only two justifications that can be imagined: Bush believed FISA court personnel were leaking info to the terror suspects, or Bush is spying on somebody that he doesn’t want anyone to know about. Only the leaking court claim could justify Bush’s action and he’s already missed his chance to make that claim.

Without an understandable rationale for a law violation that was committed many times over several years, it all boils down to a president who believes he’s above the law. And he isn’t. No President should be.

Consider his predescessor. A full-scale investigation of Clinton by a special prosecutor took place throughout our participation in the Balkans War. That conflict ended. We lost no troops. Clinton was berated and investigated throughout. Our war effort didn’t suffer as a result.

There’s a ton of circumstantial evidence that Bush has escaped legal prosecution or punishment, and avoided business losses because Dad and Dad’s friends intervened. The pattern suggests he’s avoided consequences for mistakes and crimes, leaving no incentive to learn better choices. It’s certainly possible that explains his poor performance as president and as commander-in-chief. He didn’t need to improve so long as someone connected saved him.

A censure might accomplish that. It certainly can’t make his performance worse. Properly chastened, a wartime president might become more effective. There’s no evidence at all that censure would harm the war effort or the country. And the irony is that if the people protecting Bush put the same energy out to protect the country, the war would likely already be over.