Have Americans lost the guts for democracy?

Gene Lyons

Posted on Wednesday, January 4, 2006

Every time George W. Bush gets caught in a tight spot, he does the same thing: He plays the 9/11 fear card, wraps himself in the flag, emits jawdropping falsehoods and all but accuses his critics of treason. So it is with the stunning revelation that the White House has ordered the illegal, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens in brazen defiance of federal law and the U. S. Constitution. If allowed to stand, Bush’s actions will have taken the United States a long way down the road to military dictatorship. Indeed, that’s essentially what his legalistic enablers, starting with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Vice President Dick Cheney, argue : that in wartime, the commander-in-chief can take any action he deems appropriate to protect the nation, bypassing Congress and the courts to assert the primacy of the presidency until declaring victory in the “war on terror.” As terrorism is not an enemy, but a tactic—a vile, cowardly tactic, but by definition not subject to being defeated—the metaphorical war against it could last indefinitely. And as long as it lasts, the commander-in-chief rules by fiat. Our constitutional rights exist at his sufferance.