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S.O.S. (Save Our System): Our Choice of Battlefield is Now Clear

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So, although there are many vital issues on which the Bush regime can justifiably be condemned -their disregard of the environment, their lying us into the Iraq war, their enriching the already very rich at the expense of the average American, etc.""many of these cast their shadows on that terrain of liberal-vs.-conservative whose soil has, for now, been poisoned.

But there is no such problem with the issue of preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States.

On that, there is no liberal position, there's no conservative position. There's only an American position.

It has been reported on the Internet -I do not know how reliably""that President Bush declared to a group of G.O.P. lawmakers that "The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper!" Whether or not he said it in that private meeting, of one thing one can be sure: he would never say it publicly.

The sanctity of the Constitution is a part of the American creed. Our political culture admits no other position as respectable, or even acceptable.

So if we take a stand to uphold the Constitution, and the rule of law, we escape the Rovian tricks of divisiveness. Our position is not a liberal position, but the American position. And any contrary position is, therefore, an un-American position.

We stand on ground as solid as it gets. This is the battleground we want.

The Font from which All Blessings Flow

If we can help the American people connect with how vital the Constitution is to all the blessings we have as Americans, and how the Bush administration's actions and its outrageous claims to unchecked power jeopardize that national treasure, the American people will awaken.

That points to one more reason this battlefield -"Save Our System"""is a fitting place for us to make our stand. The Constitution is the heart and soul of America. It is the essential thing that must be defended. It is the means by which this nation has achieved that rarity in human history""a free and decent society.

Our Founding Fathers gave us, their heirs, a great gift. With their deep understanding of how nations tend to slide downward into tyranny and corruption, they devised a system of checks and balances that for more than two centuries have enabled the sovereign American people the means to control their own destiny. It is the Constitution that allows us as a people to form our collective vision based on our shared values and to make collective decisions to achieve our common purposes.

If we cannot protect our constitutional system, therefore, we lose the ability to advance any of our other causes, to protect any of our other values.

For that is what the Bush administration's present mind-boggling assertion of its rights and powers threatens to do. Imagine! The Bushites are claiming that the Constitution gives the president the right and power, as commander-in-chief in a time of war, to override laws duly passed by Congress; they claim that this "inherent power" of the commander-in-chief, inferred from no particular language in our Founding document, trumps the explicit protections of the Fourth amendment; and they claim that its way of wielding these unlimited powers it is not subject to review by the judiciary.

And this unchecked power, they claim, is theirs to wield so long as we are at war""a "war" that is not really a war, that the president makes into a war by declaring it such, whose end is undefined and indefinable, and that indeed we are told will likely continue for the rest of our lifetimes.

They are claiming, in other words, that they can do whatever they wish""regardless of what Congress may enact or the Courts may think, for as far into the future as the eye can see.

If this assertion of presidential power is not a apt description of tyranny, I don't know what what's missing? If this claim of the right indefinitely to make the rules and interpret the rules as well as enforce the rules is not a coup against our Constitutional system of three co-equal branches to be a check and balance upon each other, what would be?

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Andy Schmookler, an award-winning author, political commentator, radio talk-show host, and teacher, was the Democratic nominee for Congress from Virginia's 6th District. His new book -- written to have an impact on the central political battle of our time -- is (more...)
 
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