Contempt for the Constitution

On page A-21 of today’s New York Times and deep inside its Website is the day’s most consequential story: Karl Rove being subpoenaed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about his involvement in the political prosecution of Alabama’s former Democratic governor and the firings of U.S. attorneys.

The onetime Bush political boss appears to have been deeply involved in the illegal and unethical acts. And of course he is refusing to testify. He may be held in contempt of Congress like his former colleague Harriet Meirs. The Bush Justice Department will refuse to prosecute the case. And the clock runs out.

Indeed, the clock is running out on American democracy. The United States Congress has only a little time to reassert its constitutional powers or the America we once knew is dead.

Unfortunately most of the media treat this as a minor tit-for-tat political story, which is exactly what the radical right wants.

The dubious nature of charges than sent Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman to prison for months, until recently freed by a federal appeals court, are well documented. (Read his interview here). Rove appears to have been personally involved in directing this hit job. Similarly, we know much about the firings of Republican U.S. attorneys who would not follow Bush/Rove orders to go after Democrats ahead of the 2006 elections. Yet when Congress tries to compel testimony, administration officials stonewall.

Nixon must be enjoying this. What if he had simply refused to allow anyone in his administration to testify before Sam Irvin’s committee? John Dean could have been renditioned off to Syria for torture. (Of course, that America wouldn’t have allowed it). Meanwhile, recall the media frenzy over Bill Clinton’s l’affaire Monica? Now, generations of television-numbed Americans, many ignorant of basic civics, don’t even realize the stakes.

The Bush/Cheney administration has sought to implement a wild theory called the Unitary Executive, which basically says that the president can do anything and is supreme over the other branches of government. For example, if the president says torture is legal, it is, no matter the law. Nothing could be more antithetical to the Constitution or the intentions of the Framers. Having rebelled against a king, and knowing the tendency of classical republics to devolve into tyrannies, especially under cover of war, they established three equal branches of government and a  careful balance of powers among them.

Although this work of art has been eroded for decades under the national security state used to fight the Soviets, it has come under perhaps fatal assault from the current administration. Ironically, the "conservatives" who ran Congress for much of the time and claimed to venerate the "original intent" of the Framers, were enablers of this catastrophe.

We are continuously lectured by the right that our troops are spread across the world to "protect our freedom." If the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution are not what we’re fighting for, then what? The "freedom" to be "consumers" and worker-bees who don’t ask questions of the rulers, a la Red China? The "freedom" to build an empire based on force and fear?

Congress must do more than issue contempt citations. It must begin to cut off funding for a Justice Department that will not uphold the Constitution. The purse strings represent a myriad of ways to fight back. And if this dangerous erosion of the Constitution is not a major issue for Democrats in the fall, they should go the way of the Whigs.