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OK, Don't Run, Al Gore; But Do Speak Out!
By Andrew Bard Schmookler (about the author) Page 2 of 3 page(s)
But it is not only a matter of analyzing the issues. What's called for is that you raise your voice to FIGHT over these issues, FIGHT to protect and defend the Constitution as you so often in your earlier life took an oath to do. Not just observing, but drawing your sword upon, the Bushite power.
So an important preliminary question is: are you ready to go into battle for us? Are you ready to speak with a moral passion, a righteous anger about what these Bushites are doing to the America you love?
It seems that combat is not what you're most eager to engage in. I can understand that. But America right now needs someone of your stature --and who else is there on that list-- to be a moral warrior on its behalf against these undemocratic forces. Are you willing?
If so, then --as you doubtless know well-- it is important that you go into battle well-prepared. You are fighting forces that have shown themselves --virtually day in and day out-- dishonest and unscrupulous in dealing with any opposition.
For that reason, one part of being well-prepared is to have close to you some advisors who have shown a knack for effectively turning the lying and twisted rhetoric of the Bushites back on them. Arianna Huffington and Glenn Greenwald have proven themselves adept in such battles. Doubtless there are others. But the important thing is to understand that the outcome of the fight will be determined, as much as by anything, by the quality of your counter-punching.
You need to be ready to turn every attempt to Swiftboat you into a new opportunity to expose the moral bankruptcy of the Bushite regime.
And the other important part of being well-prepared is to be fully versed on the evidence and argument by which the American people can be helped to see clearly just the pattern of crimes and lies --the abuse of power and the betrayal of trust-- of this administration and all those forces that have been behind them and remain ready to distort and pollute our once-proud constitutional democracy.
A WAY OF PROCEEDING
Getting ready shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks. Then, when you begin, start slow. Make a couple of speeches a few weeks apart that are strong enough for the media to notice, and for attention to be directed at you. But they should be mild enough that they are not too abrupt and shocking. Indeed, it might be good to allow these speeches to prompt a buzz in the media speculating about whether these are omens that you're going to run for the presidency. Then your Shermanesque renunciation of such a run can be combined with an escalation in your rhetoric.
You will, of course, be accused of partisanship. Your reply could be: "Of course I'm a partisan. But it is not as a partisan that I am now speaking. On that I give you my word. I am speaking as a patriotic American." You have enough credibility with most of the American people that they'll believe you. And the fact that the Democrats are among those who come in for your criticism will help confirm what you say.
Your overall message will be to tell America how our Founders would want us to respond to this lawless presidency.
America must repudiate this regime with its contempt for the rule of law and its pervasive lying and degradation of our democratic process. It must strip these leaders of their moral authority, and no longer extend to them the respect that we Americans customarily extend to the presidency. We cannot allow this era to become a precedent for America's willingness to tolerate the intolerable. We must reaffirm the values and principles and structures bequeathed us by our Founders.
That would be the overall message. But there would be specific messages directed to each of the components of the American body politic that has thus far failed to meet this challenge: to the people, to the press, to the Democratic opposition in Congress, and to the Republicans.
The people must be told what's at stake for us and our children in preserving and defending our Constitution, and how our Founders would want for them to react to a presidency with such a pattern of misconduct by using the "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
The press should be chided for its failure to cover this profoundly important story, this unprecedented assault on our Constitution and the rule of law-- precisely the kind of danger that made our Founders regard "freedom of the press" so important they enshrined it in the heart of the document that defines our country.
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