Every Decision is Ideological

Jonah Goldberg, in response to the notion promulgated by Obama that federal decisions on science can and should be free from ideology:

An even simpler hypothetical would be this: Imagine if the president declared "the military will be free of ideological or political interference. Henceforth, neither the Congress nor the executive branch can meddle in military decisions or impose their political or ideological agendas on how it operates."

Most people surely recognize how stupid and dangerous this would be (including the founding fathers who wisely made sure the constitution barred anything of the sort). But then again, what's the difference? After all, he military is full of experts who understand the complexities of war far better than most civilian leaders. Why should non-experts from the political branches impose their "ideological" preferences and agendas on the military? Let's not even bring up the word "ethics" — it has no place in such affairs. Let's just leave it up to the military to determine what rules it should follow, what practices it can adopt. They're the experts.

I think Saletan and Yuval don't go far enough, however, in explaining that Obama's "ideology-free" position on stem cells, is itself an ideological position. I'm no fan of the philosopher Carl Schmitt, but he was right that even the decision to decide what things are "immune" from politics is a political decision. If a right-wing president declared that he would give the military a completely free hand to set its own ethical and procedural constraints, most of us on the left and right would see that as a crazily "ideological" position.