[Mb-civic] NYTimes Article: The Anxiety of Two Who See a Democracy in Peril

[Ian]

FYI

Peace.

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The Anxiety of Two Who See a Democracy in Peril
August 9, 2004
By JOHN SHATTUCK

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.

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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.