Nothing But Politics

[Rick Faurot]

The Anxiety of Two Who See a Democracy in Peril
By JOHN SHATTUCK
The New York Times
August 9, 2004
As he left the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin
was asked by an admirer, "Dr. Franklin, what have you given us?"
Franklin turned to his questioner and replied, "a republic, if you can keep it."

Two hundred and seventeen years later we are still struggling
to hold on to our republic. According to Robert Byrd, the senior
senator from West Virginia, we have been losing that struggle
since Sept. 11, 2001, under the presidency of George W. Bush.
So grave is the threat to constitutional government perceived by
Senator Byrd that he proclaims, "Never, in my view, had America
been led by such a dangerous head of state." From assaults on
civil liberties to attacks on Congress, from unprecedented levels
of secrecy to new doctrines of pre-emptive war making, his book
"Losing America" warns of the consequences of "a reckless and
arrogant presidency," quoting the admonition of Daniel Webster:
"Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of Constitutional liberty?
If these columns fall, they will be raised not again."

Since the American republic depends on a system of checks
and balances, the concerns of a senior legislator about unchecked
presidential power are worth our attention. So are the views of the
Supreme Court. Last month, in a show of near-unanimity, eight justices
rejected the Bush administration's claim that in the name of fighting
terrorism the president can lock up an American citizen deemed
to be an "enemy combatant" and throw away the key.

A full measure of the court's rebuff can be found in the concurring
opinion of Justice Antonin Scalia, rarely a critic of presidential power
against a competing claim of civil liberties. Perhaps best known
for his role in guiding the court's decision on the 2000 presidential
election, Justice Scalia upbraided the president he had voted
to install. "The very core of our liberty," he reminded the
administration, "has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment
at the will of the executive."

With opinions like these, criticism of the Bush presidency
cuts a wide swath. A provocative and thoughtful variation
comes from the pen of Lewis H. Lapham, the editor of Harper's
Magazine, whose "Gag Rule" offers a catalog of the political
uses of fear and the value of war in bolstering the fortunes of
an incumbent president. "As a cure for the distemper of a restive
electorate," Mr. Lapham observes, "nothing works as well as
the lollipop of a foreign war."

Making the same point, Senator Byrd quotes the advice
of Hermann Göring to rulers who seek to enhance their power:
"whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship . . . all you have
to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists
for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
It works the same in any country."

While Senator Byrd is most concerned about the imperial
presidency, his wrath has other targets as well. The senator
directs some of his sharpest criticism at the institution in which
he has spent most of his political career. The Congress since 9/11
has been "unwilling to assert its power, cowed, timid, a virtual paralytic."
On no issue has this been clearer than the war in Iraq. Mr. Byrd was
appalled that most of his Senate colleagues were willing to pass
a resolution in October 2002 with almost no debate, giving President
Bush a free hand "to use the armed forces of the United States . . . as
he determines to be necessary," especially after the administration had
announced its radically new doctrine of preemptive war. The senator
minces no words in condemning what he regards as Congress's abdication
of its constitutional war powers: "In this terrible show of weakness,
the Senate left an indelible stain on its escutcheon."

"Gag Rule" is a lively political pamphlet written in the tradition of
Thomas Paine's "Common Sense." Full of examples of the post-Sept.
11 chill on dissent, it takes aim not only at the politics of fear,
but also at institutions and social phenomena that bolster an
American tyranny of the easily manipulated majority, from media
passivity to craven consumerism to political correctness of the right
and left. While the tools of war can be employed to mute the population,
Mr. Lapham argues, political passivity is also promoted by the central
features of modern American life.

But in the end the reader would like to know more from both
authors about the dilemma in which we find ourselves today as a nation.
Why, for example, was the Senate so timid during the first two years
of the Bush presidency when for much of that time it was not under
the control of the president's party? What should we make of the
willingness of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission to challenge the
factual justification for the war in Iraq? Can we count on the
federal judiciary to preserve the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
during a time of national anxiety?

How can security, civil liberties and the rule of law best be protected
in an age of terrorism? "Losing America," an eloquent cri de coeur by
a respected senior statesman, leaves a raft of questions unanswered.
"Gag Rule" reviews the political ills afflicting America today without
prescribing a cure for its collective muteness. Perhaps the implicit
message of both books is that the November election offers an
opportunity to find some answers.

John Shattuck, author of "Freedom on Fire: Human Rights
Wars and America's Response," is chief executive officer
of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and former assistant
secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor,
and United States ambassador to the Czech Republic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/books/09SHAT.html

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company