| David Bromwich |   |
Constitutional Opposition (72 comments )
Senator Feingold's recent post "After the Veto" was a stirring call to affirm and sustain a constitutional opposition to a president out of control. Every day, George W. Bush arrogates to himself some new power to override the will of the people, or to revise in secret the laws of the land.
This is the first of our presidents who seems never to have read the Constitution of the United States.His contribution to the English language, the word "decider," was a stab at explaining his understanding of his role in perfect innocence of that document. No constitutional democracy was ever made for there to be one decider. Faced by a chief executive so obdurate, impassioned, and contemptuous of legitimate authority, honest opposition must not waste its stamina in vain argument or a drawn-out pretense of negotiation. Besides, this president and the vice-president who is his political tutor have never made an apparent compromise except to go back on it at the first opportunity -- whether the issue was the legality of torture, the fairness of trials without basic rights for the accused, or the permissibility under the fourth amendment of warrantless spying on Americans. The duty of the opposition in this crisis is not to reason with a man beyond the reach of reason. It is to stop him from doing further irreparable damage to the country.
Yet part of the work will lie in explanation -- instructing not the president but the people. After five years of government by panic and asserted extralegal powers, all Americans need to be reminded of the contents of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Two presidential contenders among the Democrats are former professors of law; but how much have we heard about probable cause and due process from Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? To open their actual views of the contrast between the ideals of American liberty and the policies of Cheney and Bush -- this, surely, is among the most pertinent works for the public good these aspirants could perform in the next few months. The education of the public opinion by whose approval you hope to govern, takes time; it is late to be starting now, but not too late.
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