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December 14, 2005
Bush and the Constitution
"Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper"
By GARY LEUPP
Doug Thompson,
publisher of
Capitol Hill Blue, says he's talked to three people present last
month when Republican Congressional leaders met with President
Bush in the Oval Office to talk about renewing the Patriot Act.
That
act, passed by legislators who hadn't read it, in the immediate
aftermath of 9-11 (when most people were shell-shocked and
lawmakers in particular disinclined to use their brains), has of
course been criticized as containing unconstitutional elements. All
three GOP politicians quote their president as saying: "Stop
throwing the Constitution in my face! It's just a goddamned piece
of paper!"
At least one of
Thompson's
sources says the president, when told his insistence on preserving
some provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives
following the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination disaster,
stated, "I don't give a goddamn: I'm the President and the
Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."
I don't know how
credible this
report is, of course, but let's suppose it's true. It has the ring
of truth, it seems to me, given numerous earlier reports on the
Commander-in-Chief's state of mind and penchant for profanity.
(Capital Hill Blue has earlier noted his "short temper and tirades"
during cabinet meetings. Thompson and Teresa Hampton, citing "a
number of White House staffers" wrote in June 2004 that "[Bush] who
says he rules at the behest of God can also tongue-lash those he
perceives as disloyal, calling them 'fucking assholes' in front of
other staff, berating one cabinet official in front of others." The
Drudge Report has carried similar stories. The most recent Newsweek
contains a report that Rice has to warn foreign diplomats, "Don't
upset him" before meeting the Chief.) The man told Palestinian
leader Mahmoud Abbas in 2003 that "God
told me to smite
[Saddam Hussein]. And I smote him." Why should a man who conducts
such conversations care about a document which makes no reference
to God?
One can only hope
that if
Thompson's story is true, one of those three Republican politicos
will at some point share with the public the details of the Oval
Office encounter. I mean, what a scandal for the faithful to learn
that a man who in his oath of office swore to uphold the
constitution of the United States, a document with virtually
scriptural authority among his political base, is inclined to
privately dis this "piece of paper" (sic---parchment, actually)
while demanding that loyal Republicans help him sabotage some of
its key provisions in order to prosecute his "War
on
Terrorism." That war, being a goddamned piece of cynical
Nazi-like manipulation of fear and prejudice to unite people around
an open-ended program for endless aggression, isn't going well.
It's inevitably producing dissent, and the president wants to leave
all options on the table as he confronts not only genuine
terrorists but his critics among the American
people.
That's we the people
who have
amended that constitution over time, and obtained whatever
constitutional advances we have through struggles against
oppressive authority. President
Bush
majored in history at Yale, presumably American history, and ought
to know that. But he was a C-student, and probably didn't take his
studies seriously, and privileged throughout his life, he seems to
lack the empathy with normal humans that humanistic study
encourages. Recall how he mocked Karla Faye Tucker, sentenced to
death in Texas? How his former Harvard business professor Yoshi
Tsurumi described him as "totally devoid of compassion, social
responsibility, and good study discipline"? How his one-time
biographer Mickey Herskowitz has quoted him as saying, in 1999, "If
I have a chance to invade [Iraq]. I'm not going to waste
it"?
The man, a Canadian
official
opined in 2002, is "a moron." He's certainly an ignorant
man,
perhaps impaired by bad habits, lacking intellectual curiosity,
poorly traveled, confused about basic geography, clueless about the
history of religions but certain of the truth of his own. A thug
indifferent to torture,
happy to be led by advisors who specialize in subtly playing the
race/religious bigotry card, driven by religious
fanaticism rivaling that of any al-Qaeda militant, cockily
averring that he "knows" the American people are good and Ariel
Sharon is a man of peace, unable to admit error or even speak
without embarrassing himself in any extemporaneous public
situation. A man who read from his note cards with absolute
assurance that Saddam Hussein threatened the world with his
weapons
of
mass destruction. This is the man who calls the U.S.
constitution a "goddamned piece of paper" which ought not stand in
the way of his presidential mission. Let his remaining supporters
chew on that.
Personally, I
confess, I have
no constitution fetish. To me there's nothing sacred about that
document, and if Americans are around in 300 years I expect we'll
be working with a better one. Many years ago I was recommended by a
professor for a lectureship position in a state university, and
after getting the job was told off-handedly that before starting I
needed to make a trip to the Federal Building downtown. That state
required loyalty oaths for state jobs, so I had to swear to uphold
the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. I felt
vaguely guilty, like I was reciting the Apostle's Creed, secretly
harboring doubts about the Trinity. But I did it pragmatically,
needing the money and the job experience. Years later the
university that had employed me offered a job to a senior scholar,
who after hearing he'd have to perform this ritual turned the
lucrative opportunity down. He said he'd always opposed loyalty
oaths and would not swear one now. I felt slightly ashamed at my
own spinelessness.
But now I think of
the heroic
work of the Center for Constitutional
Rights, founded by the late great William Kunstler. I think
of
the domestic enemies of the constitution, the advocates of torture
and detention without charges or trial, and I confess that with
whatever reservations, these days I want to uphold the goddamned
thing! It's a document of the eighteenth century Enlightenment,
based on reason and humanism, very impressive when read in context.
It just takes up a few pages in your almanac. Imagine ripping them
out, wadding them up, and along with hundreds of others armed with
similar goddamned pieces of constitutional confetti paper chanting,
"In your face! In your face!" hurling them at the
Commander-in-Chief as his motorcade passes. I'm not suggesting
that, because I don't want to be accused of advocating assault in
these sensitive times. Just thinking aloud here.
But I would suggest
thinking
seriously about American and world history, and reflecting on the
history of fascism. Weimar Germany, with a constitution William
Shirer called "the most liberal and democratic document of its kind
the twentieth century had ever seen" morphed into the Third Reich,
step by step as a crazy man with unthinking admirers convinced them
that external and internal enemies threatened them. Hitler insisted
that as "a defensive measure" (against communists, whom he readily
conflated with Jews) "for the Protection of the People and the
State," the seven sections of the Weimar constitution guaranteeing
individual and civil liberties had to be
suspended.
In that context those
targeted
made common cause with any who would join in a united front against
war and fascism. The antifascists disagreed on many things, but
found themselves obliged to break old and form new alliances based
on the conviction that defense against fascism overrode all other
concerns. Again, I urge any present at the above-quoted Bush
explosion to speak out. Defend that piece of paper by exposing how
little it means to a Commander-in-Chief using fear and
intimidation, doing things his way, not giving a goddamn about we
the people of the United States or people anywhere
else.
Gary Leupp is
Professor of
History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative
Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in
in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of
Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan:
Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor
to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on
Iraq,
Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.
He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
http://counterpunch.org/leupp12142005.html
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