When Will It End, George, When Will It End?

Let me ask those of you who grew up during or because of the ‘60s whether you find comforting or unsettling revelations that the Bush administration is engaged in warrantless electronic surveillance of American citizens and that it has directed the FBI to spy on domestic activist groups? It goes without saying that we should all feel unsettled and very concerned about the administration’s decision to spy on PETA and Greenpeace as well as organizations that are certainly on the forefront of pushing for a change of policy toward Iraq. At the same time, however, having grown up learning to be suspicious about everything the government does, I have to admit to a bit of nostalgia and…yes…comfort in a return to the way things used to be. After all, there’s nothing wrong with not taking everything at face value and questioning the goals and motives of the government when those goals and motives appear to be having such dire consequences. Indeed, were it not for the fact of Nixon’s campaign against organizations that opposed the war in Viet Nam, we would never have had confirmation that the opposition was actually having its desired effect. Why else would the seemingly impregnable United States government have devoted so many resources to maintaining watch over peace organizations large and small were it not afraid that those organizations were actually making progress toward turning the nation against the war.

In all seriousness, however, in the current climate there is every reason to be very concerned about the Bush administration continuing to expand the limits of the executive beyond the confines of the law as defined by both the constitution and the Congress. Time and again, we have seen this President and this administration abuse or ignore the limits set or proscribed by the Constitution, treating its fundamental principals as nothing more than an advisory opinion. The Sixth Amendment says what? “What do you mean, submitting a nomination for associate justice of the Supreme Court because she is “one of us” isn’t allowed?” “The Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless eavesdropping? The hell you say”.

And now we come to Article II, Section 2 – the framework for functioning of the executive. This seems to be the biggest problem for Georgie boy. He just doesn’t seem to like the idea that his job description is actually encompassed and limited by the Constitution. This latest revelation is an obvious case in point. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I just don’t seem to see any evidence in the Constitution of the President’s right to order warrantless electronic spying on his own citizenry no matter how broad a reading you give to it. I understand that he was able to gain the support of Congress to use all necessary force against those responsible for the attacks of September 11th and has, as a consequence, committed us to the wars now raging in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the detention of hundreds if not thousands of people around the world suspected of having ties to Osama Bin Laden (whether actual or simply because his first name is Abdul). However, nowhere in the Constitution nor anywhere in the legislation now being cited by Bush and his Attorney General does it support the kind of domestic spying that is now taking place. Indeed, the legislation that does exist has actually prescribed a process for Mr. Bush to obtain the type of covert intelligence of persons and/or organizations in this country that are believed to pose a threat to our security. However, a piece of legislation like FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillence Act) in the hands of the Bush administration invariably turns into an invitation to excess and abuse and that appears to be precisely what is happening.

The question, of course, is why Bush, already possessed of the power to obtain electronic surveillance of our presumed enemies operating within our borders would nevertheless simply ignore those broad though admittedly somewhat proscribed powers for limitless power? The question is being posed by so-called “Liberals” and “Conservatives” alike including George Will in a recent Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post. The Constitution spells out in great detail the natural and necessary inter-relation of the branches of government and the necessity that each act as check on the other? Whatever limitations that FISA imposed on the President required only that the executive make a good showing to a secret court of the need for the surveillance and little more. In doing so, the Congress left to the President (through his Attorney General) complete control over the when, why and who of the application for surveillance without any requirement that Congress be consulted. Yet even these broad powers are not enough for our President and, again, the question is “why”? Would it not have been appropriate for the executive to return to Congress and ask that the already loose leash attendant to FISA be loosened further to permit him to conduct the type of surveillance we are now being made aware of and let Congress fulfill its “advise and consent” responsibilities on the subject? One can only conclude from the fact that this President chose to go with a secretive, extreme legal interpretation of FISA rather than asking that the law be further amended given the exigencies of the day because he has no regard or understanding of the Constitutional limits placed on his office and because this abuse of power is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg and such an application to Congress would likely lead to revelations about other illegal activities being carried out by this administration all in the name of national security.

With George Bush at the helm, we have been on a journey to undermine and destroy everything that this country has come to stand for. On the afternoon of September 10, 2001, we stood atop the moral high ground embraced by the world community as the victims of an unspeakable act. When Mr. Bush stood on the smouldering pile in the ruins of the Trade Center, we cheered the resolve to make those who brought us so much despair pay from what they had wrought. Our regrettable mistake was believing that Mr. Bush was capable of a measured and appropriate response to the horrors of that day. Instead, we opened a pandora’s box of violence and despair that has effectively yanked us off that high ground and lowered us to the level of those who intend us so much harm. Left to their own devices, the collective imaginations of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld et al have produced innumerable unimaginable practices from torture at Abu Ghraib to foreign nationals being kidnapped and held in secret prisons to the “rendition” of supposed terror suspects to foreign countries known to practice torture as part of its interrogation practices and now electronic surveillance of American citizens without warrant or credible justification.

And, yet again, the question is “why”? We are, above all else, a nation of laws that are not intended to reveal themselves only in times of peace and succumb in the face of terror and tyranny. It is the very fact that those laws prevail regardless of circumstance that has permitted us to assume and maintain the moral high ground. That fact, however, seems to have escaped Mr. Cheney, for one, a master of inference and innuendo who (not surprisingly) implied that the death of more than 100 people in US custody, many of which are being investigated as homicides, were acceptable and justified as a reminder to the American people that the pain of September 11th should never be far from their collective conscience.

When you think about it its an astonishing statement for one so close to the pinnacle of power in this country. It certainly makes one wonder what other reminders Messers Bush and Cheney have in store for us and the rest of the world.

George and His Toy Spyglass

What a country we live in, eh? Apart from the multitude of problems which have beset us over the past several years --- war, crushing budget deficits, a shift toward theocratic rule – we now learn that we’ve become the object of George’s curiosity. Living in the bubble that separates our chief executive from the rest of us, W has apparently seen fit to find out just what’s going on in the world around him by unleashing the NSA, the FBI and God knows what other acronyms to listen in on the telephonic and cyber conversations of his constituents and to surveil and gather intelligence on groups and organizations that were viewed as posing a threat to the nation’s security…like PETA and Greenpeace and….

It appears that in giving this direction to his law enforcement agencies, Mr. Bush may have misunderstood the mandate given to him by Congress in the days following September 11th. You may recall, after his return from the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center, Mr. Bush, with nary a protest from anyone on either side of the aisle, secured authority from Congress to use all necessary force against those responsible for the attacks of September 11th. Somewhere along the line, however, that supposed mandate became confused in George’s mind with the belief that no law should limit the executive in such dangerous times. And so Mr. Bush, with the obvious support of Messers Cheney and Rumsfeld and the tenuous legal support of AG Gonzalez and a law professor at Berkeley, John Yoo, embraced the idea of expanding the reach of his office into the homes and offices of his fellow citizens.

As for the spying itself, it is beyond my understanding how one gets from the legislation permitting the President the use of all necessary force against those responsible for the September 11th attacks to spying on people who oppose the inhumane treatment of animals or oppose deforestation or other abuses of the environment? Unless I’m missing something none of those organizations had anything to do with the attacks in 2001 or any other attacks for that matter unless you count throwing red paint on a fur coat being worn by one of Bin Laden’s cousins as she fled the country on September 12th.

The ultimate hypocrisy of all this, I suppose, derives not from the list of organizations which are under surveillance, but those which are not. As between PETA and Operation Rescue, for example, which poses the greater threat to the safety of the nation and its populace: one that opposes the butchering of mink to be used as expensive clothing by splashing red paint on starlets on some Hollywood red carpet or one that advocates and executes the planting of bombs in public areas to announce its opposition to abortion? Yet nowhere in this discussion do we find any evidence that anyone or anything connected with the anti-abortion movement is falling under the government’s gaze. If this program of domestic spying was truly intended as an extension of the mandate Bush believes he received back in October 2001, certainly the domestic threat posed by Operation Rescue and like-minded terrorist organizations would be included among the organizations viewed as posing a threat to our security. That the anti-abortion industry has managed to escape the government’s scrutiny makes clear, at least to me, that it is not security that George is concerned about, but suppression of views that just don’t sit well with him.

Whats Driving Senator Joe?

Joe Lieberman’s recent campaign to support the Bush administration’s Iraq policy and take issue with those, particularly within his own party, who take exception to his positions and support of the administration’s policies, raises a number of interesting issues about the Senator’s motives and aspirations. First, it needs to be said that these recent public statements about Iraq are not the pronouncements of someone who has come late to the game and prone to shifting his views depending upon how the wind is blowing. Lieberman’s position, most recently offered to the Wall Street Journal, is a reiteration of a position that the Senator has taken well before the drums of war began to echo across the nation’s political landscape. Indeed, one need only look at the Senator’s work on behalf of “The Committee on the Present Danger” (www.fightingterror.org) to understand the breadth and intensity of his devotion to his hawkish philosophy, particularly as it relates to Middle Eastern policy. That he has chosen to frame his support in the context of the opposition undermining Bush’s credibility certainly leaves one wondering precisely how Senator Joe defines credibility in the context of the current debate. Nevertheless, in much the same fashion that we have consistently decried the administration’s failure to understand and encourage the exercise of our right and responsibility to question and protest, Mr. Lieberman’s statements must be accepted and embraced as embodying, again, the reasons why the Constitution is worth fighting to protect and preserve.

For those not familiar with Mr. Lieberman’s views, take a look at either or both Hernandez and Yardley’s article, “Lieberman’s Iraq Stance Brings Widening Split With His Party” which appeared on the front page of the New York Times on December 10, 2005 or Shailagh Murray’s piece in the Washington Post of the same day. Both pieces iterate Lieberman’s contention that Bush does have a strategy “for victory” in Iraq, that there should not be a timetable of any kind for the withdrawal of troops from the war front and his admonition to the loyal opposition – particularly those within the Democratic party – that they (and I suppose we) need to get used to the idea that Bush will be the commander-in-chief for another three years and that the opposition which has certainly been gaining strength over the past many months only serves to undermine Bush’ “credibility” at home and abroad. So strong has been the Senator’s support for the administration’s policy that he has drawn enthusiastic praise from Bush/Cheney as a shining example of how a bipartisan approach to Iraq should work (note that that bipartisan approach embraces only unwavering support).

Needless to say Mr. Lieberman’s support within his own party – which peaked with his nomination to run as Al Gore’s running mate in 2000 – has dwindled considerably as a result of his increasingly public debate with the leadership of his own party over a number of policy issues including, but not simply limited to the war policy.

As for the question about what might be driving Mr. Lieberman, certainly given his earlier foray into Presidential politics it is likely that in some way he fashions himself a viable candidate for another run for the Presidency though given the ever-increasing void that has arisen between the Senator and the majority of the Democratic party, its likely that he will gain the nomination of the Republican Party before he is again embraced by his colleagues on the minority side of the aisle. Indeed, given the current climate, it seems that Mr. Lieberman has more in common with former Senator “Ranting” Zel Miller than either Harry Reid, Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer.

The explanation for the Senator’s hawkish philosophy toward Iraq and the Middle East may, in truth, have more to do with his spiritual than his political life. The Senator, as is widely known, is not simply Jewish, but orthodox in the observance of his faith and thus may believe that the best chance of gaining support for policies that are important to the Orthodox Jewish community lies with his aligning with the more strident elements of the Republican party.

It goes without saying that the term “religious fundamentalism” has gained increasing currency in the political debate that has consumed this country over the past two decades. Indeed, one need only consider the lengths that the Bush administration goes to satisfy the most conservative and religiously fundamental elements of his constituency to understand how embedded the idea of a conservative devotion to G_d has become in virtually every aspect of our lives. I have, in fact, repeatedly expressed the belief that it is the increasing influence of religious fundamentalism that poses a far greater threat to the nation than any of the extra-national issues (e.g. terrorism) that dominate the current debate. One need only look at the pressure being exerted by the so-called, “religious right” to shape the judiciary to ensure that the nation’s laws receive treatment favorable to its agenda or the allocation of billions of dollars to so-called “faith-based” organizations to understand the direction in which we are being driven and the threat posed to a Constitutional framework by which this democracy has flourished, nearly unfettered, since its inception.

When we speak of religious fundamentalism, however, it is not simply the so-called, “Christian Right” to which the appellation applies, but the conservative elements of every religion that has been permitted by the grace of our founding fathers to exist and flourish in this country. For the American Jewish community, it is within its orthodox base that it finds its most ardent supporters of the type of conservative and fundamental doctrine that has gained so much currency in this country through the political activism of the Christian Right. For Orthodox Jews, their dogmatic view of their role in the nation’s political debate begins and ends with the impact of that debate upon the State of Israel. While it is admittedly somewhat unfair to paint the entire community with so broad a brush, nevertheless it is first and foremost about Israel and how a policy or a particular candidate will effect the existence of the Jewish State that dominates the talk in shul and in the community at large when either electoral decisions are to be made or there is national debate such as that involving Iraq and the Middle East.

From this confluence of fundamental religious ideas and ideals has grown a seemingly close relationship between religious Jews and Christians that would have been unthinkable no more than twenty years ago. With the nation’s heartland less familiar with Jews and Judaism than its urban centers along both coasts and thus historically prone to an anti-semitism born as much from religious teaching as with simple ignorance, it is ironically in the bible belt where a true religious-based connection between Judaism and Christianity has grown. This affinity finds its nexus in the debate and dialog over the nation’s policies toward Israel with each seeming to tolerate and embrace the other in the short-run because of the benefits to be gained in the long-run from the relationship. Both the Orthodox Jewish community and the Christian right believe that the land of Israel was given to the Jews by G_d and that the Jews are not simply entitled, but obligated to live on the land we know as Israel (including territories which have or are about to be ceded to a new Palestinian state). It is with the establishment and preservation of a Jewish state that the confluence of interest ends. So-called, “Christian Zionists” premise their belief that G_d has ordained that the land known as Israel belongs to the Jews as a pre-condition for the second coming of Christ. As such the ultimate goals of fundamental Jews and Christians is obviously vastly different, particularly when one considers the teaching of many such Christian Zionists to envision converting Jews to Christianity after Christ’s return and slaughtering and condemning to hell all remaining Jews who refuse Christianity’s pull. The Orthodox Jewish community, presumably aware of what lurks in the hearts of their brother and sister fundamentalists, chooses to ignore the religious rhetoric for the benefits to be gained from their unwavering mutual interest in ensuring Israel’s survival. The ultimate in ignoring long-term consequences for short term gain.

So…where does Joe Lieberman come into all this? The Senator’s record makes clear his unabashed and steadfast support for Israel and in this context it is not difficult to appreciate that he would pursue the support of constituencies that reflect his devotion to Israel and belief in its primacy. Nor is it difficult to recognize that in this context, as an Orthodox Jew, Senator Lieberman would not only seek common ground with the Christian Right in this country, but seek to preserve and protect that relationship and its benefits – both political and religious – against those who might raise a protest against the overt agenda pursued by Christian Fundamentalist advocacy groups like the Family Research Council and the Christian Coalition.

With this dynamic in play, was it then a mere coincidence that the Senator sought a more public spotlight for his support for Bush’s policies within days of two speeches given by prominent leaders of the Jewish community, Abraham Foxman and Rabbi Eric Yoffe, both directly confronting the Christian Right and its injection of religion into politics, the Bush administration’s use of tax-payer money to fund religious charities (which tend to be almost exclusively Christian and evangelical in their teaching) and the atmosphere of religious intolerance that has increasingly permeated our culture. It is not mere happenstance that both Mr. Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, and Rabbi Yoffe, president of the Union of Reform Judaism are far more secular in their observance than Mr. Lieberman and that their retort to the religious right and to the Christian right, in particular, has drawn so much derision from the more observant elements of the Jewish community in this country. (The debate between Christians and Jews and within the Jewish community was well framed by Michelle Goldberg in her recent article appearing on the Salon.com website, “Jews and the Christian right: Is the honeymoon over? Worried by increasingly strident evangelical rhetoric, Jewish leaders have finally dared to criticize conservative Christians. Will an alliance held together only by a shared support for Israel survive?” which can be found at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/11/29/foxman/ and should be required reading for anyone concerned about the lessening separation between religion and state in this country).

Both speeches took direct aim at the very constituents that Mr. Lieberman undoubtedly believes he needs in order to realize a stridently pro-Israel policy and one can only imagine his reaction to the clearly inflammatory language by both Foxman and Yoffe and the rather pointed and almost threatening tone of the response from his “friends” at Focus on the Family, the Alliance Defense Fund, the American Family Association and the Family Research Council, all of which were singled out by Mr. Foxman for criticism.

Both speeches also clearly exposed a very raw nerve in the Jewish community which has existed over these past months and years like a family pariah…always present but rarely spoken of --- never completely comfortable with our seeming acceptance into American culture and thus not wanting to do anything to either draw attention to ourselves or say anything that our “hosts” will find unsettling or distasteful. There are, as Ms Goldberg describes, now cries emanating from the ranks of the both the secular Jewish community, in particular, that the Foxman and Yoffe speeches are going to trigger a new age of anti-semitism in this country and complicate our lives just when it appeared that we had gained so much acceptance.

For Senator Lieberman, the speeches pose a greater threat as they not only raise the specter of anti-semitism, but undermine years of work cultivating relationships with those who may best be able to help him continue to press for policies that ensure Israel’s survival.

The problem, of course, is that the issues and problems identified by Messers Foxman and Yoffe are real and pose a greater threat to this country than the less tangible and more abstract issues that derive from foundering policies abroad. This is a nation of laws, founded upon very concrete principles that have well withstood the test of time. Chief among them is a very fundamental decision to separate religion from government and politics. I am not talking about whether there should be a crèche or a Menorah on government property or whether its okay for the President or any government official to wish someone a Merry Christmas. Such observances hardly pose a threat to anyone’s right to worship (or choose not to worship) in peace and simply distracts from our ability to observe and contest the insidious infiltration of religion into politics and, in turn, into our lives whether it is welcomed or not.

The danger posed by Senator Lieberman is not his support for the Bush administration’s policies toward Iraq, but his seeming willingness to trade that support for a concession to an agenda which threatens our very way of life. Concessions to fear that speaking out, whether against religious intolerance or an intolerable war, has no place in the current debate. Our mandate as citizens requires vigilance and the courage to meet head on those who would seek our silence by concession.

Don and Dick's Excellent Adventure

There are many who would argue – and I include myself among them – that the over-arching strategy of the current government is to instill enough fear into the populace that implementing both domestic and global strategies that would otherwise be viewed with skepticism and concern will be readily accepted. The belief, of course, is that the route to those strategies lies in making the people fearful enough that they will not only be easily amenable to ceding individual freedoms, but insist that they be stripped of their hard-fought-for rights, all in the name of being protected from evil. The best example of the benefits of this fear-mongering is the invasion of Iraq and the arguments for our indefinite presence on its soil. So, too, was the passage of the Patriot Act, detention policies that allow the government to hold American citizens without charging them or providing access to courts,  and,  legislation that, by its silence, allows and hence condones physical torture of prisoners of war and anyone unlucky enough to be labeled an “enemy combatant”.

It is not a coincidence that we find Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney at the apex of these policies. Theirs has been a close relationship bred of a mutual belief in American military, political and economic supremacy and a myopic assurance that the best way to accomplish the realization of policies intended to facilitate this supremacy on a global level is to create an environment of fear that welcomes with open arms these designs on global dominance.

The factual distortions and inflammatory rhetoric that are part of the Bush administration’s strategy to win the hearts and minds of the American people are but echoes of a past that because of the players and strategy draw remarkable parallels (and hopefully provide lessons) between the events of forty years ago and today.

The month after Gerald Ford was sworn in as the thirty-eighth President in September 1974, he brought Donald Rumsfeld back from NATO as the White House chief of staff. Rumsfeld quickly installed his protégé, Dick Cheney, as his deputy, the same aide-de-camp role that Cheney had played under Rumsfeld in the Nixon administration. The two men held these positions for more than a year, until 1975 when Ford appointed Rumsfeld his secretary of defense and named Cheney to be Rumsfeld's successor as White House chief of staff.

Rumsfeld, already possessed of a reputation as one of the toughest “in fighters” in government, quickly turned his attention to undoing some of the mistakes he believed to have been committed during the Nixon presidency, most notably, the lessening of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. In late 1975 and early 1976,  Rumsfeld began a frontal challenge to then-Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger's policies of dÈtente and arms control (SALT) with the Soviet Union that he had negotiated while in the Nixon White House by claiming, without valid bases, that the Soviet Union remained a significant and gathering threat to the United States. In a press conference given at the DOD in 1976, for example,  Rumsfeld told the media:

“The Soviet Union has been busy. They’ve been busy in terms of their level of effort; they’ve been busy in terms of the actual weapons they’ve been producing; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding production rates; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding their institutional capability to produce additional weapons at additional rates; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding their capability to increasingly improve the sophistication of those weapons. Year after year after year, they’ve been demonstrating that they have steadiness of purpose. They’re purposeful about what they’re doing."

Replace the words, “Soviet Union” and “they” with “Saddam Hussein” and “the Iraqis”, and you have one of the speeches Don delivered from the same podium twenty five years or so later. Remarkable.

A major component of Rumsfeld’s strategy was the creation of Team B, a committee comprised of “outside experts” gathered to assess the quality and validity of threat assessments being circulated by the CIA. Ironically, it as W’s father, as then-director of the CIA who approved the creation of Team B at the behest of a number of conservative cold warriors and hard liners,  chief among them, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz (might we call them Bush’ “A” Team?).

Given the opportunity to undertake an objective analysis of the data being produced by the CIA, Team B consistently interpreted the information in its worst light drawing conclusions that invariably led to a near-Dooms Day scenario. It reported, for instance, that the Soviets would have 500 intercontinental Backfire bombers capable of striking the United States by 1984. In reality, only 235 were ever deployed. Team B also claimed that the Soviets were working on an anti-acoustic submarine, though they failed to find any evidence of one. The hawks of the time explained away this lack of evidence by stating that ‘the submarine may have already been deployed because it appeared to have evaded detection.’" (“Its Time To Bench ‘Team B’”, Lawrence Korb, Aug. 18, 2004, Center for American Progress)

Team B also contended that the CIA was consistently underestimating Soviet military expenditures. With the advantage of hindsight, we now know that Soviet military spending increases began to slow down precisely as Team B was writing about "an intense military buildup in nuclear as well as conventional forces of all sorts, not moderated either by the West's self-imposed restraints or by SALT." Although Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld's assertions of powerful new Soviet WMDs were unproven - they said the lack of proof proved that undetectable weapons existed - they nonetheless used their charges to push for dramatic escalations in military spending to selected defense contractors, a process that continued through the Reagan administration. Trillions of dollars were poured into the military-industrial complex. It was ultimately proven, however, that they --  Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz -- had been wrong all along about Soviet weapons of mass destruction and their intention to use them and that the CIA had been right. Not only do we now know that the Soviets didn't have any new and impressive WMDs, but we also now know that they were, in fact, decaying from within, ripe for collapse any time, regardless of what the US did - just as the CIA had indicated in its threat analyses and National Intelligence Estimates. “For more than a third of a century, assertions of Soviet superiority created calls for the United States to "rearm." In the 1980s, the call was heeded so thoroughly that the United States embarked on a trillion-dollar defense buildup. As a result, the country neglected its schools, cities, roads and bridges, and health care system. From the world's greatest creditor nation, the United States became the world's greatest debtor--in order to pay for arms to counter the threat of a nation that was collapsing.” (“Team B: The trillion-dollar experiment”, Anne Hessing Cahn, April 1993 pp. 22, 24-27 (vol. 49, no. 03) © 1993 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).

The suspicions and fear-mongering that surrounded the deliberate over-estimate of the Soviet threat during the ‘70s and early ‘80s morphed into the fear mongering by many of the same persons about the threat posed by Iraq we are currently facing. Though Team B’s work ultimately ended during the Clinton administration, its effort to impose its distorted world view was taken up by “The Committee on the Present Danger” and ultimately by the “Project for the New American Century” (PNAC). As with Team B’s advocacy during the ‘70s and ‘80s, PNAC, in 1998, urged then-President Clinton to recognize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and immediately remove him from power by strategic means. The signatories of that letter included old Team B’ers, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle with an assist from the now notorious, John Bolton. Though PNAC has sponsored the authorship of a large number of position papers since its inception in 1997, it was its blueprint for global domination, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century”, authored by former Team B member, Wolfowitz and others in 2000, which has garnered the most attention for PNAC because of its contention that an overthrow of Hussein and the establishment of an American presence in Iraq was essential first step to preserving and protecting American interests and superiority abroad.

Most assuredly, the echoes of the past are continuing to reverberate through our lives. If there is a distinction to be drawn it is in the success realized by Rumsfeld and Cheney in gaining access to an administration that is not simply open to their ideology but one that embraces its principles and the means of imposing this ideology upon the American people by any means necessary including fear, intimidation and demagoguery.

One can only hope that as with any echo, its reverberations will grow faint and eventually become silent.

Ray of Light

There is so much that is negative and so much negativity about our world today and I admit to both falling prey to and perpetuating both with the essays and commentary in this blog. In many respects, if you care…if you are concerned, it is easy to get swept up in the foul energy that pervades so much about the world and easy to forget that there may just be an escape from this potentially consuming sense of … what…despair (is that too strong an emotion)? Easy to forget that there is a way to live without intolerance, without hate and without ignorance….until something like “Paper Clips” comes along to remind us that there is hope for us after all if we are simply willing to stop for a moment and allow for the kind of renewal that this brilliant film instills in anyone lucky enough to see it.

If you’re not familiar with the film, “Paper Clips” is the story of several middle school teachers in Whitwell, population 1600, an entirely Christian and almost exclusively white community in rural Tennessee who sought a way to expose their students to ideas and experiences that they would never encounter in their very insular and isolated small community and, in doing so, impart to them a lesson about hate, intolerance and prejudice. The event that they chose could not have been more removed from their existence --- the Holocaust and the six million Jews who were exterminated in death and work camps throughout Europe. That none of them…students, teachers, principal, had likely ever met a Jew, let alone experienced anything in their lives that could provide a context or framework to even begin to understand what had happened during those dark years makes the project all the more remarkable. Trying to come to grips with the sheer enormity of the loss – how to understand just what six million means – they learn that the Norwegians wore paper clips on their lapels as a way to show their resistance to Hitler’s policies and so decide to honor the six million by collecting paper clips, one for each soul that was lost at the hands of the Nazis. Over the next several years, because of the relentless dedication of school principal, Linda Hooper and teachers, David Smith and Sandy Roberts, the project continued and gradually gained national and international attention and, in doing so, eventually accumulated more than 29 million paper clips from all over the world, many donations accompanied by letters from Holocaust survivors or the children of Holocaust survivors and many simply accompanied by notes from strangers who were touched by the effort and wanted to make some sort of contribution. Indeed, one such gift came in a small valise which contained handwritten notes from German school children apologizing to Anne Frank for that which she and her family had endured. The words and pictures that provided the group with a basic understanding of the horrific event were transcended by a visit from four survivors who spoke first in a local Methodist church and then at a school assembly, giving voice – thick with Eastern European and Yiddish accents – to the horrors that they witnessed and ultimately survived and it is certainly the visceral impact of their individual and collective stories which finally and for once drove home the true impact and import of the images – so alien and distant – that the students and educators had viewed to acquaint themselves with the object of their lesson.

Ultimately, the teachers and students decide that the best way to bring closure to the project is to create a memorial to the victims and, with the aid of two visiting German journalists, Dagmar and Peter Schroeder, locate a rail car in Germany that was used by the Nazis to transport Jews to death camps in Eastern Europe. The Schroeders arrange to have the car brought to the United States and finally to Whitwell where its journey finally ends. In the words of Linda Hooper, it would no longer be a symbol of death, but one of hope. With a memorial garden surrounding it, the car becomes the final resting place for eleven million of the paper clips, one each for the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and intellectuals who met their end at the hands of the Nazi regime. There is an unmistakable spiritual quality to the memorial that is palbable on the screen and one can only imagine the power of standing in the boxcar where so many met their end.

It is difficult to say exactly what it is about the film that provides such a powerful response to the world we have created for ourselves. Perhaps it is the genuine innocence of those 8th and 9th graders juxtaposed against the horrors that befell countless children like themselves or the realization…certainly for the first time…that words, however innocently uttered in ones’ community and among friends and family, can have tragic consequences when the stereotypes and prejudices that hide within those words are played out to their most illogical and horrible conclusion.

What is most telling and most powerful about the film is the unmistakable sense that it is the innocence and not the evil that wins in the end.

The film is available on HBO on Demand and certainly can be rented from your local video store. See it.

Darth Cheney

One of these days, Dick Cheney is going to slip and invoke Jack Bauer’s name in the middle of one of his diatribes against his critics for certainly it is with the fictitious CTU officer whom Mr. Cheney best relates. One can only imagine the Vice President pining for a world like the one in which Bauer operates, unfettered by limitations imposed by moral code or law in which the government’s efforts to secure information from the enemy are limited only by the ingenuity of the interrogator. In lobbying to remove any limitations imposed by the McCain-sponsored anti-torture legislation upon the CIA’s ability to secure information from “enemy combatants”, Mr. Cheney certainly has in mind “24’s” second season, among others, in which Bauer coerced a confession from a Middle Eastern terrorist by showing him a live video feed of his children being shot one by one until the terrorist “gave up” the information Bauer sought (the terrorist is not told that the killings had been staged and that his children were actually alive) and later murdered a suspected terrorist during interrogation (he simply pulled his weapon and executed the shackled suspect) in order to re-establish his undercover status and make contact with the target of the investigation. Mr. Cheney’s lobbying efforts and rhetoric make clear his conviction that the CIA requires the same freedom afforded Mr. Bauer in order to carry out its mandate. Most assuredly, Mr. Cheney shares Jack’s firm belief that the ends justify and excuse the means.

It may very well be that Dick Cheney is crazy. Yet, given that it is Cheney and not Bush who is generally believed to be the de facto leader of the free world, the thought that the behavior that we have witnessed over the past five plus years is driven by insanity rather than a perverse sense of right and entitlement is so frightening that one almost embraces the idea that the Vice President has simply perfected the art of demagoguery and political vitriol rather than being driven by inner demons. Nevertheless, his recent efforts in support of torture and characterization of claims by Senate Democrats that he and the President misled the country about pre-war intelligence as “one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city” does raise concern about the man’s health and, consequently, that of the country.

In discerning the state of Mr. Cheney’s mental health and his often acerbic oratory, let us consider, for the moment, his latest charges about the honesty of those who press for an explanation from the administration about its use of intelligence to support its invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It is indeed with some gratification that Mr. Cheney’s accusations are comparative in nature, leaving room for acts of dishonesty that exceed those of his critics. While one might be tempted to accord the likes of Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff or his own “Scooter” Libby as title holder of “dishonest” and “reprehensible”, it may very well be none other than the Vice President himself who wears that crown proudly.

Even before considering his conduct during his Vice Presidency, it is important to know who it is we are dealing with.

For example, beyond the damage wrought by Halliburton during his tenure at the company’s helm, Cheney negotiated the disastrous (for Halliburton) acquisition of Dresser Industries in 1998 (disastrous because in doing so Halliburton also acquired more than $700 million of Dresser’s asbestos-related liability), and then used two Dresser subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co., to sell water and sewage treatment pumps, spare parts for oil facilities and pipeline equipment to Baghdad through a foreign intermediary in violation of UN sanctions. Not surprisingly, in a July 30, 2000 interview on ABC’s “This Week”, Cheney steadfastly denied that Halliburton or its subsidiaries did any business with Baghdad.

As for his behavior since the 2000 elections?

• Continuing to use intelligence received from a captured Al Qaeda operative, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, concerning Iraq training Al Qaeda agents in the use of biological and chemical weapons in 2003 and 2004 to suggest to the American people that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda despite being told in February 2002 that the intelligence was wrong;


• Perpetuating mis/dis-information that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction when it was clear that none existed;


• Continuing to suggest that there existed a connection between the attacks of September 11th and Hussein, repeatedly referring to a meeting between one of the hijackers, Mohammed Atta and Iraqi agents in Prague weeks before the attacks without any basis in fact for doing so;


• Conducting secret meetings with executives from several of the largest oil producing companies in the world during which the Vice President promulgated administration policy concerning drilling, exploration and pricing. Significantly, not only has Cheney steadfastly refused to share any information about the meeting, but just this past week we witnessed the spectacle of the very oil executives who either attended the meeting or were represented at the meeting denying that they attended the meeting during Congressional hearings;


• Pushing for legislative exemptions to permit the CIA and Army intelligence to torture enemy combatants and captured insurgents; and,


• The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections. (First reported in Philip Geraldi in the Aug 1, 2005, issue of The American Conservative)

If the Vice President is not responding to his inner demons, then why have we been subjected to this type of abuse of power? In the words of Joshua Marshall in his Washington Monthly piece, “Vice Grip: Dick Cheney is a Man of Principles. Disastrous Principles” (Jan/Feb 2003):

“Cheney is conservative, of course, but beneath his conservatism is something more important: a mindset rooted in his peculiar corporate-Washington-insider class. It is a world of men--very few women--who have been at the apex of both business and government, and who feel that they are unique in their mastery of both. Consequently, they have an extreme assurance in their own judgment about what is best for the country and how to achieve it. They see themselves as men of action. But their style of action is shaped by the government bureaucracies and cartel-like industries in which they have operated. In these institutions, a handful of top officials make the plans, and then the plans are carried out….In such a framework all information is controlled tightly by the principals, who have "maximum flexibility" to carry out the plan. Because success is measured by securing the deal rather than by, say, pleasing millions of customers, there's no need to open up the decision-making process. To do so, in fact, is seen as governing by committee. If there are other groups (shareholders, voters, congressional committees) who agree with you, fine, you use them. But anyone who doesn't agree gets ignored or, if need be, crushed. Muscle it through and when the results are in, people will realize we were right is the underlying attitude”.

Righteousness and entitlement...entitlement and righteousness.

The question Marshall ultimately poses, “Why, though, has the press failed to grasp Cheney's ineptitude” is at the core of why we find ourselves in this mess. Revelations this week that Bob Woodward was apparently the first (at least this week) member of the fourth estate to obtain information from a highly placed source (and did so before “Scooter Libby” apparently shared the information with Judy Miller, Bob Novak or Matt Cooper) simply reinforces the now-realized understanding that the press has existed to serve rather than report upon this government; that driven by corporations more interested in the money that so-called, “inside information” will generate rather than in the veracity of the information and the motives of those sharing the information, the press – the print media in particular – has come to be viewed by this administration as its voice and ally rather than its watchdog. Consequently, rather than raising concern about Cheney’s words and actions, people like Woodward and Miller willingly pass along the VP’s comments without comment of their own simply to maintain access at the risk of their own journalistic integrity. That no one in the media, for many months, said nary an unkind word about Mr. Cheney has damaged this nation, and by extension, the world as much as Mr. Cheney’s words and conduct.

Deeds and Words

I am admittedly very frustrated with the direction that the country has taken (as these posts will attest) and with Bush’ apparent ignorance about his responsibilities as defined by the Constitution and by the precedents set by his predecessors. Out of curiosity, I spent some time looking at how several of our more prominent Presidents have viewed their responsibilities as manifested by their words, more than their deeds. While there are glimpses of their philosophies in mid-term speeches, it is invariably in the Inaugural Speech that you find the President in his most eloquent discourse about the Presidency and his duty as principal guardian of the rights granted and protected by the Constitution.

Working my way back through time, I looked at the first time speeches given by Clinton, Reagan, Kennedy, Roosevelt (Franklin, not Teddy), Lincoln, Monroe, Adams, Jefferson and, of course, Washington and surprisingly found relatively little lengthy discussion about how the then newly-elected standard bearer viewed his duty to his constituents. Lincoln, for example, was understandably consumed with the then-imminent destruction of the Union (first term) and the need for healing (second term). Jefferson spoke at some length about the relatively new Constitution in terms of the freedoms it conveyed, most notably (are you listening George?), religious freedom and the imperative that church and state be kept separate. Washington, humbled by his selection as the nation’s first leader, sounded tired and overwhelmed by the task that lay before him. While nearly all, of course, described an agenda for the succeeding four years, none spoke at length about the Presidency in terms the President’s responsibility to unify the citizenry behind the common goal of establishing and perpetuating America’s responsibility to lead at home and abroad with honesty, integrity and civility …until I came across these words:

Our unity, our union, is the serious work of leaders and citizens in every generation. And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity.

I know this is in our reach because we are guided by a power larger than ourselves who creates us equal in His image.

And we are confident in principles that unite and lead us onward.

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.

Today, we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion and character.

America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility. A civil society demands from each of us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness…..

We must live up to the calling we share. Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos. And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to shared accomplishment…..

The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom. We will defend our allies and our interests. We will show purpose without arrogance. We will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength. And to all nations, we will speak for the values that gave our nation birth.

That the speaker of these grandiose ideals was none other than George W. in his first inaugural address makes what has transpired over the past four plus years all the more difficult to accept.
Putting aside the real possibility that these ideals were uttered by Mr. Bush with tongue firmly planted in cheek and accepting, for the moment, that there was actually an element of belief in what he said on the steps of the Capitol nearly five years ago, it is indeed astonishing that his deeds not only failed to live up to those ideals, but have made a mockery of the very principles that he espoused that day.

“And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity….America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility. A civil society demands from each of us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness…”? While the nation has most assuredly been fractured and divided during its life, those divisions have invariably been driven by events and not by or at the urging of its President. Yet, if there is anything that defines Mr. Bush and all that he is about, it was his pandering to the fundamentalist religious right in the wake of the Miers’ nomination. His is not a world defined by unity or good will or respect or fair dealing unless each of those virtues is proffered for the purpose of furthering his own fundamentalist view of the world. There is, in fact, no room for civility or forgiveness or any these values (undoubtedly learned through his “Twelve Step” program and new found belief that Jesus Christ is his savior and the answer to all questions) unless you are “one of us” for indeed if you are not one of George’s “us”, you are, by definition, one of “them”. Us versus them? Red state versus blue state? Republican versus Democrat? Liberal versus….well liberal is too dirty a word to even provide a counterpoint to anything in W’s world. This divisiveness has not evolved independently of the man sitting in the Oval Office, but, again, borne of a world view that defines itself by the divisiveness it creates. Whether it is in his dealings with many of our former (and hopefully future) allies abroad or with vast segments of the population which never accepted George Bush into their lives, if you are not with George, you are against him.

It remains to be seen how widespread and long-lasting the damage is. Certainly for the families of the dead and wounded, the damage will never see an end. It is also likely that the damage to the world community will not see an end for many years to come. Hopefully, as the standard bearer for Jesus’ newly gathering army on these shores, Mr. Bush does not see himself as a modern day Richard the Lionhearted launching a new Crusade to take on the Muslim infidel, Saladin north of Jerusalem yet one does get the distinct impression that indeed that is precisely how Mr. Bush envisions his legacy unfolding. At home, the vision has taken many forms: voucher programs built into the “No Child Left Behind” legislation; the expressed support for “intelligent creation” which has already led the Kansas school board to again change its curriculum to emphasize religious over scientific explanation and, of course, the religious litmus test for the selection of judges to all levels of the Federal judiciary to name but a few examples.

Where does it leave the rest of us (who, by the way, I suspect are actually the majority of populace) who actually believe in the efficacy and guiding principles of the Constitution and continue to resist the demagoguery of this evangelical President? Take solace and know that you have the full faith and support of our founding fathers who, having only then recently been denied fundamental freedoms by the Crown, spent considerable time and energy drafting the rules of governance and required that the nation’s leadership not only espouse religious and political freedom, but guard it above all. As Jefferson put it in his first inaugural address:

“[L]et us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions”.

Are you listening, George?

Clinton and Bush: Differing Responses to the Same Intelligence

What follows is my email response to Jonah Goldberg’s op-ed piece in the St. Louis Post- Dispatch, “Democrats’ Hypocrisy is Hurting America” though the response is intended for all those Bush apologists who defend Bush’s conduct by pointing to Clinton’s reliance upon the same intelligence about Hussein’s capacity to wage war.

What you failed to note or acknowledge is that what Clinton was advocating in response to the then-available intelligence was not war but more strenuous sanctions and inspections. Iraq, during the nineties, as a result of Bush I and Clinton, was isolated and largely impotent. The only people pushing a different viewpoint about Iraq's capacity were Iraqi ex-patriots like Chalabi and the authors of PNAC's 2000 paper, "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (Wolfowitz, Libby, Zackheim, the Kagens and Schmitt). Clinton, to his credit, did not succumb to these PNAC ideologues and their 1998 letter urging a more aggressive response to the then-available "intelligence" about Hussein's capacity to wage war and was certainly roundly criticized by PNAC and its followers (and, I suspect, by you, as well) for not acting. It is misleading (and does a great dis-service to the discussion about Bush' push to war) to simply point out that Clinton "believed" the intelligence about Hussein; the point is not what may have been known, but what was done about that intelligence and what both Presidents did with the information. Clinton, again, pushed for more sanctions and more inspections; Bush took the "intelligence" and ran with it, picking and choosing his way through the intelligence to make his case for war. There is no question that he and/or his advisors chose to ignore intelligence that undercut the initial assumptions. It was incumbent upon Mr. Bush to make absolutely certain that the intelligence he was acting on was accurate before he decided to throw so many lives into the meat-grinder that has become Iraq. That he didn't is nothing but arrogance and utter incompetence. With so many dead and wounded (Iraqi, American, British, Italian et al), I think we owe it to ourselves and to our allies to understand why we now find ourselves in this situation. If, as it appears, the reasons include mis-information and dis-information, Mr. Bush owes it to the dead and wounded to acknowledge his culpability.

The Man Behind the Curtain Wins

So, how does a sitting President make one of the worst betrayals of public trust and possible acts of treason magically disappear? Well, you take full advantage of a fourth estate that is so eager to please that it will fall over itself chasing its own tail.

You keep a close eye on the comings and goings of the Special Prosecutor, fully aware that indictments against members of your team are likely and that they are just as likely to be handed down before the grand jury disbands on October 28, 2005.

You devise a strategy to use the nomination process to divert attention from the coming indictments by asking one of your loyalists to agree to “accept” a nomination to become an associate justice of the supreme court with the understanding and expectation that the nomination will be withdrawn well before the "nominee" is to be questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

You thereupon have the loyalist “withdraw” her nomination on the pretense that continuing her nomination will neither serve the interests of the country or the post to which she has been nominated. In truth, again, it was never the intention to allow Harriet Miers to get anywhere near the Senate Judiciary Committee as it is readily understood that she has neither the legal qualification or political muscle necessary to satisfy even the most ardent of supporters; that being the good soldier, hers was the unenviable task of absorbing punishment from every quarter until the day it became clear that indictments were near and her services were no longer necessary. The timing of the "withdrawal", however, is actually not intended to coincide with the expected indictments or to compete with if not completely divert attention away from the pending criminal prosecution. It is rather the eventual nomination of a new associatejustice which is expected to distract the media and public from the soon-to-be-announced indictments.

You either have foreknowledge that the indictments will not be handed down until Friday or simply catch a break because Fitzpatrick is not ready to go public until Friday afternoon. As a result, whereas Libby’s indictment and the shroud of corruption that the indictment would otherwise throw over the White House would have dominated the news had the indictment been handed down earlier in the week, the Friday disclosure allows the shroud to dissipate over the ensuing weekend despite extensive coverage by the Times, The Post and other news outlets.

You then announce the nomination of Samuel Alito to succeed the Miers’ “nomination” at 8am on the Monday following the Libby indictment. By doing so, it is the Alito nomination and not the Libby indictment which immediately becomes the news of the day as the morning talk shows are coming on the air. In doing so, you choose someone who you know will appease your base and, at the same time, antagonize the moderates in your party as well as nearly the entire Democratic party. The resulting firestorm of protest -- the likely threats of a filibuster and the ensuing implementation of the dreaded "nuclear option" -- and the media attention is receives further serves to put distance between the Libby indictment and talk of the corruption reaching Big Karl and the VP and the day's discourse.

You unleash your minions -- the Pat Buchanans, the Bill Kristols and the rest of the gang -- to take to the airwaves and proclaim the whole thing much ado about nothing and, with little or no response invited or provided, the "fair and balanced" characterization morphs into a generally accepted view of the indictment and the events that led up to it.

In the meantime, the resulting media attention and hysteria surrounding Judge Alito -- who he is, what he stands for and how he is likely to vote once he takes his seat on the court -- dominates the print, television and internet media for weeks if not months to come as the nomination process drags on. Scooter who?

Alls well that ends well, eh?

Miers Withdraws?

Was she ever truly a nominee? If you will forgive a bit of paranoia for a moment, is it possible that it was never the intention of the Bush administration to advance her nomination? Is it possible that in their distorted and perverted view of the world, the nomination was offered with the expectation that it would be withdrawn just as Pat Fitzpatrick’s presentation to the grand jury was drawing to a close? It would not be the first (and unfortunately likely not the last) time that the Bush administration abused its responsibilities to the electorate and its broader constituency by playing games with the mechanisms of government.

I can certainly be accused of being paranoid and my suppositions plainly absurd. Nevertheless, this administration has done nothing to earn the right to proclaim with certitude that it would never stoop to such an abuse of process. It may very well be that there is nothing more at play here than the arrogance and ever-increasing incompetence of a lame duck President who hasn’t a clue about his responsibilities under the Constitution to the Country and to the integrity of the Court. This was, after all, a President who either was so full of his self-righteousness or so incredibly incompetent as to defend and support the nomination of his personal lawyer by pointing not to her qualifications as a lawyer but to her qualifications as a Christian. Assuming, again, that this was not entirely a sham nomination, there can be no doubt that when the President announces that, “She’s one of us” in defense of his long-time friend and supporter all Americans lose because we are subject to a President who either cares nothing for the Constitution or is simply so ignorant of the Constitutional limits imposed on his office that he was unaware that is pronouncement violated Article IV, Clause 3 prohibiting the use of a religious test to gauge a nominee’s qualifications. This is, after all, a President who views the government as his personal play thing for rewarding his most loyal friends and supporters with government positions for which they hold no qualification other than their undying loyalty to Mr. Bush and his family and Ms Miers -- in both her loyalty and lack of qualification -- would snuggly fit this mold.

On the other hand…..is it not also reasonable to believe that Bush and his advisors never intended to go through with the Miers’ nomination? Clearly, they must have known that the nomination was doomed from the outset. Beyond the obvious…that she had never served as a judge and provided no indication that she was sufficiently conversant in the Constitution to interpret and apply its anachronistic pronouncements…Bush and his must have known that her service as personal counsel to Bush both before and during his presidency would present a nearly-impenetrable obstacle to overcome. Are we to believe that they only today or recently came to realize that her advice to W would become an issue and that they would never be able to share that information with the Judiciary Committee or was it always and ultimately that stumbling block that Bush intended to use to pull the plug on the nomination. Are we to believe that Miers and her handlers were so inept as to believe that the questionnaire answers submitted to the Committee were genuinely intended to fully respond to its inquiries or were they submitted knowing that because the answers were so obviously superficial and evasive that the questionnaire would be rejected by the committee in order to delay the nomination hearing and buy additional time for W. If all this is true, why would she subject herself to the derision and ridicule directed at her --- particularly by the extreme right --- over the past several weeks? She is, of course, a good soldier in the Bush army and does appear prepared to throw herself in the way of any political bullet aimed at her client and friend and it is not too hard to imagine that that loyalty would have included enduring those slings and arrows of [out]rageous fortune that have been aimed in her direction since her nomination.

To what end has this all been played out we may never know. The timing of all of this does again raise some index of suspicion that there is a whole other game being played out that we are simply not privy to. Whether this has something or anything to do with Rove, Libby, Hadley et al (whether they are indicted or not there is certainly going to be some criticism leveled in the administration’s direction involving the Plame affair and its manipulation of intelligence to control the debate during the run up to the war) or some gambit involving the nomination itself is not clear and, again, may never be known. Nevertheless, the whole thing seems too absurd, even for W and Big Karl, to be what it appears. As always, ignore the man behind the curtain….

Harriet Miers and the Religious Right

Are we to take solace from the “fact” that Harriet Miers decided to accept Jesus Christ as her savior in 1979? After a bit more than a day of hand wringing by the conservative wing of the Republican Party about Bush’s failure to fulfill their lifelong dream of putting a “real” conservative on the bench, Mr. Bush sought to allay their fears that she wasn’t “one of them” by assuring his extremist constituency that she shared his views. That pronouncement was followed in short order by the beginnings of a certainly careful media campaign to assure and reassure Bush’s core support of counsel’s Christian and conservative pedigree with the release of articles detailing her private, late night soul searching conversations with fellow law partner, Nathan Hecht that ultimately resulted in her rebirth as a Christian.

While that may be good news to the Richard Vigueries of the world and the religious fundamentalists who comprise the bulk of Bush’s support, the news should not be taken well by the majority of Americans who simply believe in the integrity of our Constitution and in a democracy that has been able to survive -- quite well, thank you -- without shifting the government to a theocracy.

I do not raise these concerns because I have pre-judged Harriet Miers or the judicial philosophy she will follow as she evolves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. I was not one who joined in the knee-jerk reaction in opposition to Bush’s selection of John Roberts to initially replace Sandra Day O’Connor and then William Rehnquist. If nothing else, ascension to the High Court has had a most sobering effect upon virtually all those nominated to its service, forcing most to recognize that the Court represents the very essence of the law and the means by which a dispute is resolved. It is that recognition above all else which led jurists like John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy and others – all envisioned by the right to be standard bearers on the court – to recognize first, foremost and forever that it is to the Court and to the rule of law that they owe their only obligation. John Roberts would appear to recognize and understand that responsibility even before he donned his robs on the first Monday of this October. Harriet Miers, should she survive the nomination process, may also come to understand the enormity of her responsibility to the constitution and distance herself from any political agenda which prompted the submission of her name to succeed Justice O’Connor.

That Bush feels the need to defend her nomination by emphasizing her religious devotion rather than her legal skills should give one more than a moments’ pause and raise concern about her capacity to understand and honor her commitment to the law and jurisprudential processes which dominate the disposition of cases which come before the Court. There is, after all, perhaps no greater principle built into the Constitution which defines our democracy and distinguishes it from every other social experiment that exists today or has gone before than our agreement to separate religious observance from social governance. Those on the right who demand that religion play a greater role in our governance simply do not understand the Constitution and why this democracy has succeeded when so many others have not. The alternative to that which has guided us over the past two hundred thirty years is the type of theocracy which took hold in Afghanistan after the Soviet Union was forced out and in Iran following the fall of the Shah in 1980 – a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that enforced theocratic principals and, in the process, led to much suffering at home and abroad. The religious right in this country seeks to impose its will upon the general population along the same lines as the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Shiites in Iran by pushing for legislation that blurs the lines between Church and State and reshaping the Courts to ensure that when challenged those laws will be survive in the context of a new interpretation of the First Amendment. One need only to look at the chaos and turmoil that surrounded the effort to “save” Terri Schiavo’s life to understand what this political and social shift would mean to the country and our ability to govern as we have since the inception of the our democracy. Is it truly in our best interest for judge’s to live in fear that they will be subject to recall and impeachment if they fail to rule as the religious right believes they should?

There is, of course, nothing wrong with a Justice of the Court, regardless of its level, being religious and seeking solace and guidance from G_d. The problem for any government is when that solace and guidance finds its place in the interpretation of legislation and the resolution of disputes. It is first, last and always the Constitution which must control all decisions by the Court. That Ms Miers has found Jesus, I’m sure, is of great comfort to her, to Mr. Bush and to the religious right (at least the Christian religious right). Ultimately, however, it must be the Constitution and not the writings and pronouncements of Jesus which must guide her. She must understand and accept that by becoming a Supreme Court judge her first responsibility is to safeguard the Constitution, even at the expense of her own convictions.

The Greatest Threat

The greatest threat to our country lies not in the sands of Iraq and its gathering insurgency or in the foothills of Tora Bora, but in our nation’s capital. The world has become a far more dangerous place for its inhabitants because of policies advanced by the Bush administration that on their face purport to offer safety and security for the nation, but, in truth, offer something quite different. That which we are witnessing is nothing short of a political and societal revolution that will leave us less secure, less safe and less prosperous than any point recent history. This is an administration that views the government as a personal playground to reward party loyalty at the expense of its obligation to protect and defend the constitution and its broader constituency. It gives refuge to and encourages an ideology that blatantly seeks to re-write the basic principals that have allowed this democracy to survive and prosper for more than 230 years. I am a life long Democrat, but, like most of the country, am neither liberal nor conservative in my views. I want to be safe, secure and prosperous and share a very real concern that the hole we have dug for ourselves will be difficult to overcome and that the damage inflicted upon us by those sworn to protect and defend us, while hopefully not irreparable, may be nearly so.

I’ve only walked the earth for a bit more than fifty years and thus can’t say with any certainty that we as a nation have seen a worse time in the nation’s life. Certainly the threats posed by both world wars represented unprecedented threats to our nation’s survival yet in both instances those threats were imposed by forces beyond our borders and, in many ways, galvanized a response which permitted the country to emerge stronger and positioned in the new global paradigm as the world’s first and now only surviving super power. Unlike that which has come before, what we face now is of our own doing and, more to the point, the doing of the Bush administration and all those who support it. Never in my lifetime have I seen a government as arrogant, so incompetent, so deceitful, so insensitive and so out of touch with the hopes and aspirations of its constituents as that which controls our lives as we go to bed this night.

We are, as well, witnessing a cultural shift by that leads creatures like Bill Bennett to believe he has license to very publicly state that the best way to reduce the crime levels in this country is to abort all black babies. As with so much about this cultural shift and its proponents, it is not so much an absolutist view of the world as it is a view that picks and chooses its way through its social agenda to produce an outcome that simply serves their end. It is not that abortion is wrong in all its forms, but that when applied in the fashion advocated by Mr. Bennett, it can actually serve a social end. I suspect that Mr. Bennett, an ardent anti-abortion activist is not the only one of his ilk to share this view concerning the selective use of abortion to further a political end. The view, in fact, seems to have been embraced in less strident terms by many Republicans in Congress who view the Diaspora created by Katrina as a way to re-create the character of New Orleans by controlling the numbers of black families returning to the City and, in turn, redistricting the City to limit the effect that a black vote would have both locally and state-wide. While it’s certainly not the same as killing black babies, the effect, in many ways, is unfortunately the same.

Ultimately, I suspect that Mr. Bennett’s perverse views will not prevail and that the de-minoritization (admittedly not a word) of New Orleans will be resisted and fail. The point, however, is that the culture created by and surrounding Mr. Bush invites, encourages and ultimately protects this type of philosophy and therein lies the danger.