Is Adam Schiff Changing His Tune-- Or Just Playing Smart Politics In A New District That's WAY More Progressive Than He Is?

In 2000, I was especially excited about defeating radical right freshman and impeachment manager, Jim Rogan in the district next door. I didn't know much about the Democratic state senator running against him, Adam Schiff, only that he was a Democrat. I was kind of naive about DC politics back then. The online grassroots model of fundraising Blue America uses hadn't been invented yet and I helped Schiff raise money the old fashioned way. I maxed out to him personally and got all my colleagues at Warner Bros and in the music business to contribute as well. The race turned into the single most expensive congressional race in history, Schiff spending $4,650,104 and Rogan kicking down $6,889,947. I'm sure the large sum from the music business Schiff got for his war chest helped him beat Rogan. And beat him he did-- by a startling 53- 44%. I was very happy to have helped revenge Bill Clinton, to elect a Democrat to replace an especially bad Republican and to actually know a congressman. It was just a few months before I realized I had made a dreadful mistake.

Schiff is a conservative careerist and a corporate whore. He joined the Blue Dogs, started voting with Republicans again-- for example-- the LGBT community-- and then, the final breaking point, came in 2002 when Schiff joined 82 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote for, H.J. Res. 114, the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution. Most Democrats voted NO, as did Ron Paul and 5 other Republicans. I went crazy and even wrote Schiff a letter telling him to lose my contact information. When a mutual friend tried explaining it away by telling me that Schiff is Jewish, it only further incensed me. Sure, Eliot Engel (D-NY) always puts the Likud's interests ahead of U.S. interests, but that isn't the case for all Jews, not by a longshot. And not a legitimate excuse. Jerry Nadler is not only Jewish, his district has far more Jews than Schiff's. Jan Schakowsky, Bernie Sanders and Ben Cardin, the last two both then in the House, are also Jewish-- and voted against authorizing the ill-conceived and illegal attack on Iraq.

Lately, Schiff has been radically redistricted. He's not just my congressman, but the congressman for one of the most progressive districts in America-- as well as one of the gayest. He's now the congressman for West Hollywood, Silverlake, Hollywood, Los Feliz, Atwater Village, conservative-free zones. He quickly dumped the Blue Dogs and joined the equally conservative New Dems (who aren't as obsessed with bigotry the way the Blue Dogs are). And he went from being openly hostile to the LGBT community to running to the front of the parade and trying to portray himself as a great friend of gays and lesbians. Sickening. And now he's doing the same thing in terms of the anti-war majority in the district.

Last week Spencer Ackerman, a progressive embedded in the Pentagon's press office, had an exclusive interview with Schiff for Wired, who talked about how he's going to draw up a bill to finally end the War on Terror Authorization. His bill would "sunset" the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force that every Member of Congress voted for with the exception of Barbara Lee (D-CA). Schiff told Ackerman that “The current AUMF is outdated and straining at the edges to justify the use of force outside the war theater.”

Repealing the AUMF would be the boldest restriction of presidential war powers since 9/11. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have relied on the document to authorize everything from the warrantless electronic surveillance of American citizens to drone strikes against al-Qaida offshoots that did not exist on 9/11. Getting rid of it is certain to invite fierce opposition from more bellicose members of Congress, who have repeatedly demagogued efforts to roll back any post-9/11 wartime authority, let alone the most important one.

...Schiff thinks that the end of the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014 ought to occasion the end of the AUMF, and his bill would use the Afghanistan drawdown as a hinge point. He openly admits to being unsure whether Congress should pass a follow-on piece of legislation allowing the president a limited version of his war powers, or what those post-Afghanistan powers might appropriately be.

The U.S.’s counterterrorism “architecture is becoming increasingly unsustainable,” Schiff says, “but I have only a less clear idea of what should follow.” Schiff, a moderate, is still in the early drafting stage of the bill and doesn’t yet have a timeline for introducing it. But the animating idea behind it is that Obama ought to come back to Congress to outline what war powers are necessary, so legislators can go on record blessing or rejecting the next phase of the war on terrorism.

...That’s a position that may not sit well with the U.S. military. During a Senate hearing last week, generals from the Joint Staff and senior Pentagon civilians argued that the AUMF was a necessary law that should remain in place-- unchanged. The position satisfied neither Democratic and Independent critics who saw it as a blank check for war nor Republican critics who considered it too restrictive to fight 2013-era terrorism.

One of them is McKeon, the first legislator who proposed reexamining the AUMF. Repealing it outright doesn’t sit well with him-- and probably many other congressional Republicans and some Democrats.

“The chairman is far from convinced that’s the direction we need to go,” says an aide to McKeon’s committee. “We need to reaffirm our authority with respect to those [al-Qaida] affiliated groups.” What’s more, Obama’s willingness to “ultimately repeal” the AUMF runs right smack into his codification of a more limited counterterrorism war lasting for years. At the National Defense University, Obama simultaneously talked about a longer war and removing his own authorities for waging it.

Schiff sees all this tension-- on the Hill and within the administration-- as an opportunity. “There’s probably bipartisan support for the idea that the existing AUMF is ill-suited to the nature of the threats we face now,” he says. But there’s “probably bipartisan opposition to what would come after,” both from the left and right. Schiff thinks that disagreement means a congressional debate about the future of presidential authority against terrorism is overdue. He intends to kickstart one.

I wouldn't trust Schiff, a warmonger at heart, to lead this effort. We may wind up with a partial repeal but we won't wind up with something that a Barbara Lee or Jerry Nadler would write.