Published in the March 2005 issue of The ProgressiveRuth Conniff
As the Bush Administration pushes forward with its aggressive plans to tear up the Constitution and launch its liberty jihad, Senator Barbara Boxer has stepped forward as the voice of Democratic opposition.
In her celebrated clash with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the confirmation hearings, Boxer quoted Martin Luther King Jr., in what ought to be the Democrats' new motto: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
The life began draining out of the Democratic Party the day it decided to take a pass on opposing the most aggressively rightwing Administration in history. Fortunately, Boxer and a handful of colleagues decided to reverse the trend by publicly repudiating Bush in what was expected to be a noncontentious confirmation process. In taking a principled stand against Rice and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a few Democrats became the party's backbone.
The counterpoint to this position, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, took to the floor to endorse Rice and to caution fellow Democrats against giving aid and comfort to America's enemies by opposing Bush's nominees, or his policies. The criticisms of Rice, particularly her dissembling on Iraq, Lieberman said, "are all about the past."
"I don't hear any criticisms about where we are now or where we should go in the future," he said. (Memo to Joe: The war in Iraq rages on. Thirty-one Marines died in a single incident on the highest-casualty day of the conflict for the United States, the same day you were making your let-bygones-be-bygones remarks.)
Sure, Rice and the rest of the Bush team made a lot of self-contradictory statements about weapons of mass destruction. But "if you're just upset about some of the things this Administration has done in Iraq . . . give [them] the benefit of the doubt." Lieberman pleaded.
Lest anyone think there's a minority party in this country that opposes Bush's crusade to spread freedom's "untamed fire" to "the darkest corners of the globe," Lieberman declared that, "in the final analysis, we're together. We're together on what we're doing in Iraq and on the spread of freedom and democracy around the world."
Why is this man a Democrat?
It was a Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who stepped up first to oppose the Pentagon's frightening new warmaking powers. After New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh and The Washington Post reported that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is running his own secret intelligence-gathering operation without Congressional oversight, McCain called for hearings to determine if, in fact, the Pentagon can claim such unchecked power.
The Democrats, meanwhile, are clearly divided on how to play the role of opposition. Boxer represents the more aggressive approach, while Lieberman and other spineless wonders continue to pursue the conciliatory route.
Even on abortion--once the last big ideological divide between Republicans and Democrats--the Dems are making increasingly conciliatory noises. On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Hillary Clinton declared that pro-choice Democrats must find common ground with the anti-abortion crowd. She called abortion a "sad, even tragic choice" that pro-choice and pro-life Americans should work together to prevent through "religious and moral values," as well as abstinence education.
Remember when defending abortion rights was the big reason to vote Democratic? I guess that offer was good only before Bush took office for a second term.
So what's the outlook for the next four years? Who will oppose the Bush Administration's worst policies? And what hope is there for a minority party to be an effective opposition?
On the plus side, along with Boxer, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin found his voice during the confirmation battles and, despite his general policy of rubber-stamping cabinet appointments, including John Ashcroft, took a principled stand against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
While he is against opposing any cabinet nominee on ideological grounds, Feingold said, he opposes an Attorney General who does not respect the rule of law. "Time after time, Judge Gonzales has been a key participant in developing secret legal theories to justify policies that, as they have become public, have tarnished our nation's international reputation," he says. Chief among these, of course, is Gonzales's infamous memo declaring that torture isn't torture unless it causes pain "equivalent in intensity" to organ failure or death, and his dismissal of the Geneva Conventions as inapplicable to suspected terrorists, as well as his endorsing the suspension of the rights of so-called enemy combatants, a view later struck down by the Supreme Court.
"We cannot have a person heading the United States Department of Justice who believes that the President is above the law," Feingold asserted. "I think this Committee and the American people deserved to hear whether the next Attorney General agrees that the President has the power to disobey laws as fundamental to our national character as the prohibition on torture. Judge Gonzales refused to address this question unequivocally," Feingold said in a statement explaining his no vote.
On the issue of Rumsfeld's secret spy powers, Feingold told The Progressive: "When the Executive Branch starts acting without oversight from the elected representatives of the American people in Congress, a fundamental principle of our system of government is abandoned, and policy starts to go off the rails."
Just by bringing public attention to the outrages of this Administration, symbolic stands like the confirmation battles serve some purpose.
But more concretely, it is now up to the Democrats to stop the dismantling of Social Security, the rollback of abortion rights, global warfare, and secret torture chambers. Can they do it?
The numbers are not working in their favor. With the 55-45 split in the Senate, the Democrats can't call hearings or control when legislation reaches the floor. To increase their power, the Dems need to pick up seats in 2006. And they need to make enough noise about this Administration's outrages to help bring public pressure to bear. In other words, they need to be a real opposition. Boxer has the right idea.
But believe it or not, there are those who argue that what the Democrats need to do now is compromise more on matters of core principle.
American Prospect Editor Paul Starr, in a January 26 op-ed in The New York Times, put forward the theory that the Democrats are now paying the price for having made the great liberal gains of the last century through the courts and executive fiat. Roe v. Wade, civil rights laws, and other federal triumphs of liberalism were ahead of the curve, Starr writes. Imposed by the Supreme Court and the executive branch from above, they were always vulnerable to overthrow by an unconvinced populace. Fair enough. But instead of arguing that the Democrats should build a stronger grassroots movement, Starr goes on to assert that what the Democrats should do is compromise and agree to chip away at abortion rights and affirmative action, in order to appease Red State voters.
This sort of thinking is why Hillary Clinton extended an olive branch to the anti-abortion crowd. But it is a grave mistake. The Republicans have made their grassroots gains in the states and nationally by taking exactly the opposite tack. They have fired up their base by appeals to their party's most cherished principles. Especially on the issue of abortion, the Democrats actually enjoy the advantage of a majority pro-choice consensus in public opinion polls. It's absurd to capitulate to a minority of aggressive rightwingers. Worse, it is the seeming shiftlessness of Democratic candidates that makes them so unappealing.
Save Social Security from the privatizers. Get out of the quagmire in Iraq. Defend a woman's right to choose. And remember the words of Martin Luther King: Don't be silent about things that matter.
Ruth Conniff is Political Editor of The Progressive.
