THE WANDERER, JANUARY 26, 2006
JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH
Bigot-Baiting Bombs
Samuel Alito survived his confirmation hearings with
a poised performance that was assisted, in the end, by
Democrat excesses. Led by the ineffable Ted Kennedy, the
Dems tried to tar Alito as a bigot for having belonged to
the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a conservative group
whose office my son used to work in, opposed to
coeducation and affirmative action -- positions which are
now apparently thought-crimes.
At one point Alito's wife broke down in tears and
had to leave the hearing room. What actually provoked
this was not Kennedy's aggressive insinuations, but
Republican Lindsay Graham's quietly indignant rebuke to
them; she had braced herself for the smears, but she was
unprepared for an outburst of decency in that setting,
and her pent-up emotions got the best of her. Suddenly
the Democrats looked small, cheap, and mean. The Party of
Compassion was up to its old tricks, and they had
backfired.
As Kennedy railed against the "reprehensible"
Princeton group, it came to light that he himself had for
half a century been a member of Harvard's all-male (and
therefore reprehensible) Owl Club. Oops! This is the
progressive champion who charged that Alito's affiliation
"calls into question his appreciation for the need for
full equality."
Bob Bork must have been roaring with laughter as
Kennedy, through a spokeswoman, announced that he was
resigning as an Owl.
What a hoot! Kennedy, who became famous as the kid
brother of a dynamic young president, has become a
tiresome, bloated old man, the Jabba the Hut of liberal
hypocrisy. Nothing seems to penetrate his arrogant
self-assurance; he evidently doesn't realize that he has
become a symbol of moral decadence, pompously droning on
behalf of the hollow values of an era that is past.
As the Last Kennedy, he occupies a position of
quasi-royalty in his party, and the Democrats have nobody
big enough to tell him it's time to retire and stop
embarrassing them. Since he is most unlikely to grasp
this through introspection and self-examination, they are
stuck with him until nature pulls the plug.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton made a similar blunder in
a black church while observing Martin Luther King's
birthday, when she charged that the Republican-dominated
House of Representatives is run "like a plantation."
Again, the old trick of insinuating bigotry ("and you
know what I mean") no longer worked as of yore; the chief
public reaction was revulsion.
She also hurt her presidential ambitions with her
stridency, which undercut her recent attempts to sound
moderate; her screeching voice is not an asset. I never
cease marveling that so many American women spend
billions on their looks, hair, and wardrobes, but never
give a thought to how their raucous voices offend the
ear. A melodious voice can be more charming than dazzling
beauty, and it doesn't cost a dime; but this secret seems
to be known to few women outside the South, and Hillary
failed to pick it up in Arkansas.
All of which goes to illustrate that the Democrats
don't know how to capitalize on their opponents'
weaknesses. As the Republicans lose popularity, the
Democrats go around, as somebody has nicely put it,
whipping up apathy.
They have absolutely nothing fresh to say; they
merely play on ancient resentments, on prejudices as
stale as those they impute to others. When they don't
know what else to do, they accuse the Republicans of
bigotry.
The Impeachment Remedy
A Zogby poll finds that 52% of the public thinks
President Bush should be impeached if he authorized
illegal wiretaps of Americans. I can't argue with them;
but I think Americans would actually demand impeachment
far more often if they understood their Constitution.
In THE FEDERALIST, Alexander Hamilton explains that
impeachment is a way of removing a president without the
violence incident to the deposing of a British monarch --
a point underlined shortly after he wrote when the French
beheaded their king and queen. A king was an almost
sacred figure, above the people, whereas a president
would be a mere temporary officer selected by the people
themselves. Removing him would be more like dismissing an
errant servant than a regicide, rebellion, or revolution.
So a presidential impeachment is not, as commonly
said, a "constitutional crisis." On the contrary, it's
the constitutional remedy for the abuse of power. And it
shouldn't be reserved for crises; it should haunt every
president in the same way that the chance of getting
fired should haunt a bank teller who is tempted to
embezzle funds.
It happens far too seldom. Since at least the days
of Lincoln, American presidents have been allowed to
usurp power with impunity. So have judges and
legislators. We have neglected an essential tool of
self-government.
Lincoln and the Press
Speaking of Lincoln, a stunning new book recounts
his war against freedom of the press -- in the North.
LINCOLN'S WRATH (Sourcebooks), by Jeffrey Manber and
Neil Dahlstrom, deals with the most neglected aspect of
the Civil War, the battle for public opinion and
Lincoln's largely hidden, but very active, role in it.
The modern media were still in their infancy, with
such new inventions as photography and the telegraph
transforming the traditional newspaper. New York City
alone had 174 newspapers (only a few of which were
dailies). Nearly all of them were partisan; the idea of
"objective" and unbiased reporting was practically
unknown. With so much competition, their survival often
depended on political and government patronage, as well
as access to the mails.
"In this country," Lincoln observed, "public
sentiment is everything." For him that meant that it had
to be controlled, by any means necessary.
Lincoln and the Republicans looked on the Democratic
press as little better than treasonous. And in their
minds, any reservation about the war -- even the mere
suggestion that the "rebels" might have a point -- was
treason. Lincoln set out to crush the opposition press,
not only using arbitrary arrests and dubious legal powers
given him by the Republican Congress, but tacitly
encouraging mobs to invade newspaper offices, smash
printing presses, and visit violence on publishers.
He never expressed regret for these outrages and
never prosecuted them. (At the same time, he extended
secret favors to "loyal" newspapers.)
Lincoln's many speeches extolling freedom, in
striking contrast to Jefferson's, never mention freedom
of speech or an independent press. Strange and even
paradoxical as it may sound to those beguiled by the
"Honest Abe" myth, freedom survived in spite of Lincoln,
not because of him.
+ + +
SOBRAN'S looks at Lincoln as courtroom lawyer, young
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--- Joseph Sobran
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