Constitutional Law

The Politicization Pitfall

By Gabe Rottman

The Post has this excellent rundown on the current Congress’s struggles to take on the White House on civil liberties and security. Nice pickup on the ACLU’s sheep ads.

At the Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress yesterday, panelists discussing the balance between security and freedom lashed out at Democratic leaders for not standing up to the White House. “These are matters of principle,” said Mark Agrast, a senior fellow at the center. “You don’t temporize.”

The American Civil Liberties Union is running Internet advertisements depicting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) as sheep.

“Bush wanted more power to eavesdrop on ordinary Americans, and we just followed along. I guess that’s why they call us the Democratic leadersheep,” say the two farm animals in the ad, referring to Congress’s passage of legislation granting Bush a six-month extension and expansion of his warrantless wiretapping program.

What the article (and the Democrats) sort of miss is that the problem here isn’t just fearmongering on the part of the GOP—though they certainly are guilty of that—it’s the notion that somehow getting into the weeds of procedural protections and safeguards against abuse on counter-terrorism legislation is wimpy.

I certainly concede the deep internal schisms in the Democratic Party, yet I do not concede that those fractures are any deeper than among the Republicans. What is a shame is that the Democrats allow themselves to be drawn into this false dichotomy between protecting civil liberties and protecting national security. Case in point, Rep. Rahm Emmanuel:

But political fear still hovers over any legislation that touches on the fight against terrorism, which, for Democrats, may be the new third rail of politics.

“We can do this, but you have to keep in mind Republicans care more about catching Democrats than catching terrorists,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “They have spent years taking Roosevelt’s notion that we have nothing to fear but fear itself and given us nothing but fear.”

At the end of the day, the only responsible course of action is to damn the torpedoes, use the power of the majority, and push through sound counter-terrorism policies that hew to our constitutional tradition and liberal heritage. If conservative Democrats can’t keep their seats after doing so, well, that’s the price you pay for the party you choose.

Somehow, however, I don’t think that’s going to happen. If there’s one lesson that the Democrats haven’t learned from the GOP it’s that equivocation—not attention to civil liberties—is the real third rail of American politics. And a majority that acts like a cowering, flip-floppy, ineffectual minority won’t be a majority for long. It’s worth noting that the Democrats took back the Congress in 2006 even though the Republicans ran a typical 9/11 campaign and most Dems voted against the Military Commissions Act.

In short, compromise=bad. Doing what’s right, regardless of the consequences=priceless.

Full post as published by Find Habeas Corpus on August 30, 2007 (boomark / email).