Scott Horton On The President-Tyrant

Horton is a person with the rare ability to translate precisely and in just a few words thoughts that capture the essence of the potential unraveling of the republic. I spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff as do most of our readers and the liberal blogosphere, but few of us have the capacity to translate what forms the basis for our nightmares into a coherent and brief essay. Horton does have the capacity and he exercises it regularly but this essay, to me, captures this moment in our history perfectly:

On Friday, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse went to the well of the Senate to deliver a speech. I very rarely quote from floor debate and speeches in the Senate. Frankly that’s because there is only very rarely anything worth quoting. But listening to and watching Senator Whitehouse, I saw the spirit of a modern-day Cicero rising to defend the life of the republic against the encroachments of a man who would be dictator. It is not just Whitehouse’s rhetoric which commands respect and attention, but also the evidence he musters.

Whitehouse used his position on the intelligence committee to gain access to the Justice Department’s new torture memoranda and to summarize their reasoning and content. And, exactly as we have long suspected, the essence of the reasoning latent in the legal infrastructure of torture is simple:

The word of the president is the law. The president defines the law. The president stands above the law and cannot be made accountable under it.

In order words, George W. Bush has asserted precisely those powers and prerogatives for which King Charles I lost his head. He has laid claim to a measure of power far beyond anything that the U.S. Constitution accords. He has even claimed more power than the British monarchs against whom the Founding Fathers fought the Revolution.

Senator Whitehouse is a former prosecutor, former U.S. Attorney, former Attorney General of Rhode Island, and former legal advisor to the state’s governor. He is a man with a long and honorable tradition of law enforcement. Here’s how he summarizes the situation:

In a nutshell, these three Bush Administration legal propositions boil down to this:

1. “I don’t have to follow my own rules, and I don’t have to tell you when I’m breaking them.”
2. “I get to determine what my own powers are.”
3. “The Department of Justice doesn’t tell me what the law is, I tell the Department of Justice what the law is.”

When the Congress of the United States is willing to roll over for an unprincipled President, this is where you end up. We should not even be having this discussion. But here we are. I implore my colleagues: reject these feverish legal theories. I understand political loyalty, trust me, I do. But let us also be loyal to this great institution we serve in the legislative branch of our government. Let us also be loyal to the Constitution we took an oath to defend, from enemies foreign and domestic. And let us be loyal to the American people who live each day under our Constitution’s principles and protections.

Important words. An important call. And who was listening.

And another lesson flows from this. Is it any wonder that torture lurks in the background behind all these suggestions of the paramount power and authority of the president? Torture is inevitably and inextricably bound to tyranny. It is an attribute of a tyrannical system, and it is anathema to democracy. We are living this proposition today, in these weeks.

These are the headlines of one simple week, the first week of December 2007. We watch as our republic fades and erodes. And the public continues in its consumer glee, not oblivious to the disasters unfolding about it—it recognizes that something horrible is happening—but feeling powerless to stop it.

What’s needed? First, the power of memory. To recall our own history, the sacrifices of those who went before us, and the dream of democracy and informed citizenry upon which the nation was founded. Second, the realization of danger that is present in a Government which disrespects the ideals and institutions upon which the nation was built. Third, action—demands upon those who have acquiesced in this conversion of power that they restore the constraints of the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson formulated the call perfectly:

Let him say what the government is, if it be not a tyranny, which the men of our choice have conferred on our President… In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.(bold is mine)

I wholeheartedly agree, but as I have said before, I am not sanguine about our ability to get out of this mess largely because the people who are the opposition leaders of our cause are so ineffectual. And that is where I believe other commentators are correct in their criticism of Whitehouse who surely did say what had to be said, but he still got it only half right. There are always going to be awful people like Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, and others that would do their bidding, but where have our champions been and where are they now? It surely is time to stand and be counted but when the leaders on our side are the thin gruel we have seen since the end of 2006, I find no reason for optimism, let alone hope. If I am proven wrong it will be because of people like Whitehouse but then we will need more from Harry Reid than making a big deal of keeping the senate in session over the recess as that kind of "bold" action won't be enough to overcome the evil empire.