Seventh circle of Zell
In his address
to the Republican convention last night, Zell Miller showed he is no
democrat. That's a lower-case "d": I'm not talking about the political
party Miller, a Georgia senator, nominally belongs to. I mean that Miller
doesn't seem to understand the simple basics of our system of government.
Salon's Tim Grieve has already taken
apart the distortions of fact in Miller's (and other) convention
speeches. (Those weapons systems he complains Kerry opposed? Then-defense
secretary Dick Cheney questioned them, too.) And Miller's rhetorical
question, "Where is the bipartisanship in this country when we need it
most?" should rightly be addressed to President Bush, who, in the days
after 9/11, stood astride the most unprecedented swell of bipartisanship in
decades -- and then squandered it on narrow, extremist policies, dirty-pool
politics and a divisively launched and incompetently executed war in Iraq.
No, I want to talk about this sentence in Miller's speech: "Today, at
the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the
mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker
because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander in
chief."
Strip this of its spin and modifiers and what Miller is saying is,
"While Americans are dying, the opposition party is trying to win the
election, and that hurts the nation."
Well, what does Miller suggest Americans do who honestly believe that
George Bush is making disastrous mistakes at home and abroad? Grin and bear
it and fall in line -- because, hey, he is the commander in chief? The
very fact that "young Americans are dying" -- many of whom very likely did
not have to be dying -- is what fires up much of the opposition to the
president. But Miller thinks that if soldiers are dying, the essential work
of democracy -- endorsing our leaders or replacing them if we think they're
screwing up -- must halt.
Note the militarism here. Forget that our Constitution puts the civilian
authority in charge of the military; in Miller's rhetoric, "commander in
chief" trumps "president." And dissent equals insubordination.
Miller's speech goes on to declare, "It is the soldier, not the
reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not
the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the
agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest."
I'm sorry, senator, but you couldn't be more wrong. (And every
Republican who applauded you needs a remedial civics class). It is the U.S.
constitution that bestows these freedoms. Executives and legislators
sometimes try to abridge them. Soldiers, for the most part, protect them.
But from the time of the nation's Founding Fathers on, American leaders,
thinkers and citizens have been conscious of the tension between our
cherished civil freedoms and the logic of warfare. Waging war demands
sacrifice and obedience -- and compromises freedom. And so democracies
rightly and appropriately go to war reluctantly, and voters demand that
their leaders show that there is no alternative to fighting.
Oh, right, that's why we're having an election-year debate about a "war
of choice" in the first place.
I can't imagine anyone watching Miller's frothing speech and feeling
reassured about the direction Bush is taking us. It was an outburst of
intimidation, intended to cow. Dave Winer heard the
jackboots behind it: "Why was the Miller speech so scary? Answer -- you're
next. That's what Miller was saying. After this election we put on the
brown shirts." That may be a little over the top, but the fact that's it's
only a little over the top is itself chilling. Josh Marshall heard
the same noise,
just a little more muted: "This whole confab has been built around
militarism, the seductions of the mentality of siege and insecurity both
from without and within, and the sort of
no-rules-win-at-all-costs-lie-if-it-works mentality that will lead this
nation to grief."
There is no Bush administration record to run on: At home they've raided
the treasury and looted the future of Social Security for tax cuts for the
rich, and abroad they've squandered the support of the world and bungled
the war on the perpetrators of 9/11. All the Republicans can do -- as we've
seen this week --is attack, attack, attack. They're trying to plant a
little seed of terror in each voter's mind, hoping to immobilize the
opposition and persuade the undecided that they don't dare hope for
anything better. Scariest of all is that it has a chance of working.
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