Another reason why the Bush Administration has been so gratuitously contemptuous of legal and moral traditions...

[James G. Wilson]

      One of the principle tenets of Rovism, which faces serious 
electoral challenges every two years, is that the country must be 
seriously divided over national security issues.  A majority of the 
populace must perceive Republicans as more capable and willing to defend 
our nation from attack and to assert our interests abroad than their 
Democratic rivals.  Thus, the atrocities on September 11 presented both 
an opportunity and a threat to Rovism.  Clearly, the nation would rally 
around the President and give him great discretion in the future.  But 
at least initially, the Republicans could not paint Democrats as 
"pro-terrorists" as easily as in previous decades when the Right smeared 
the Left as pinkos and fellow travellers.  Even though I work in the 
so-called "radical" academy, I have yet to meet anyone, anywhere, who 
condoned those terrorist acts.  Some liberals and leftists have been 
attracted to Communist and Socialist approaches over the decades, but 
hardly anyone on the more secular left would find common cause with 
these violent religious fanatics.

      Thus, one of the primary purposes of the war on Iraq was to 
repolarize the country.  That succeeded quite well.

      But it was also important to force Democrats to disagree over the 
more focused conflict against terrorism.   Thus, the Bush administration 
created the following set of executive powers that could be used by any 
President anytime in the future:

1. The President can determine the extent of threat to national security.

2. The Executive Branch can, without warrant, ignore the Fourth 
Amendment and listen to any private conversations.

3.  Based upon information gathered through these warrantless searches 
and any other data it may gather, the Executive can arrest any citizen 
or alien and keep them indefinitely incarcerated without access to the 
legal system (Of course, the Supreme Court in Hamdi put a small, 
legalistic obstacle in the way instead of adopting the courageous 
positions of Justices Scalia and Stevens.   Scalia's dissent is one of 
the greatest legal opinions of all time; those who equate him and Thomas 
do not understand the significance of Hamdi.  Shame on Breyer, Ginsburg, 
and Souter).

4.  The Executive Branch can abuse and torture any of these people as 
long as it wants--even after they could not possibly have any 
information.  Apparently, the Executive Branch also can "outsource" its 
torture to even more sadistic regimes.

5.   The President can lie about any of the above.

6.   Who knows what else the Bush administration has done....


     Well, somewhere along this grisly list, most progressives, 
liberals, and many moderates will disagree on policy and/or moral 
grounds.  Thus, the Republican hate machine can paint them as soft on 
terrorists while intimating that they actually are pro-terrorism.  

       Of course, whatever else you want to say about Rovism, you have 
to concede its willingness to gamble.  There was a reasonable chance 
that a large majority of the American people would have been repelled by 
such tools of totalitarianism.  At least so far, such has not been the 
case.
     
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