THE WANDERER, MAY 31, 2007
JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH
Then ...
Thomas Jefferson, composing his own tombstone
inscription, didn't see fit to mention his presidency
among the three chief achievements of his life. Imagine
what he would think of today's obsession with the office,
which has become, in effect, a seriously corrupted
monarchy.
The modest executive role envisioned by the Framers
of the U.S. Constitution now seems incomprehensibly
quaint, and in the age of mass "democracy," so does the
constitutional method of electing them. The idea that the
Electoral College should actually decide who shall be
president strikes most Americans as so absurd that they
never even bother to ask why it ever made sense.
The reason, of course, is precisely that the
president was never meant to be a king. These United
States, as READER'S DIGEST still calls them, were to form
a republic, delegating a few specific legislative powers
to a Congress in which the people would elect one house
and the state governments would appoint the other. Most
actual power would remain with the people and the states;
the president and the federal courts -- particularly the
federal Supreme Court -- would make few if any fateful
decisions.
The great horror of Americans in that age was
"consolidated" (i.e., centralized) government. The
presidency would be more an honor than a position of real
power. It should hardly matter who held the office. It
was so weak that there was no reason to fight very hard
for it, or to spend much money campaigning for it; nor
was there any reason to worry about assassination, since
the stakes were so low. Presidents didn't have to worry
about their personal safety. They were more concerned
with their personal honor. Even in Lincoln's day any man
on the street could still walk into the White House and
ask the president himself for a job!
The original system was so different from today's
that the most lucid explication of it, in the FEDERALIST
PAPERS, has become puzzling to read, like a medieval
treatise on alchemy. Its basic terms -- "consolidated,"
"delegated," "usurpation," "confederacy," "sovereignty,"
and so forth -- form a language alien to us. Even Lincoln
hardly understood them.
The original design began to unravel very early, as
party politics, abhorrent (in principle, at least) to the
Framers, emerged. Later Lincoln denied and then destroyed
the sovereignty of the states, on which everything
depended. The damage was compounded by amendments that
virtually repealed what was left of the original
Constitution, and it is almost nonsense, now, to speak of
"strict construction." To hear this phrase from a Rudy
Giuliani is beyond all irony.
The 22nd Amendment, limiting the president to two
terms, should have been entirely unnecessary; it was a
desperate reaction (and a pathetically futile one)
against the hypertrophy of the office by Franklin
Roosevelt's time. Neither the people nor the states are
sovereign now; subject to a few vestigial limitations,
the president is. The original American republic is gone
irrecoverably.
... And Now
The foregoing was meant to be a brief prologue to
some reflections on the 2008 presidential campaign,
already as far advanced as a terminal case of bone
cancer. I'm afraid my exasperation got the better of me.
The latest wrinkle in this mess is the news that New
York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg may be about to enter the
race as an independent, financing his run with one of his
own spare billions.
Last week I offered a hopeful scenario for next
year, with Ron Paul running and winning as a third-party
candidate, the lone conservative against two liberal
nominees offered by the major parties. It could happen,
but so could this: The Democrats run Hillary, the
Republicans run Giuliani, and Bloomberg runs too. That
would give the voters a real choice: three pro-abortion,
pro-war, pro-homosexual New York white liberals. I
suppose this is a liberal's idea of diversity. As Bill
Clinton used to say, "Diversity is our greatest
strength."
With Giuliani running, Bloomberg would seem
superfluous. The only difference between them is that
Bloomberg isn't a Catholic and doesn't pretend to hate
abortion, which makes him, I guess, ever so slightly
preferable. Among these three, Hillary should win. (The
ballyhooed Barack Obama, glib but wispy, is already
fading.)
In that case, though, a principled conservative like
Paul might win as a =fourth=-party candidate (the
Constitution Party?), for whom the glut of liberals would
surely create a furious demand. The possibilities are
endless. No use trying to predict which way this ball
would carom.
Rudy's Roar
In the second Republican "debate," Phony Rudy had
the sort of big demagogic moment that usually wins these
sorry contests. When Paul remarked that the 9/11 attacks
were the result of U.S. meddling in the Middle East, a
thought that had occurred to me before the second tower
fell, Giuliani erupted in hypocritical outrage. The South
Carolina Republican audience applauded wildly, and the
Fox pundits scored it a triumph for Rudy. Other
Republicans wanted Paul expelled from the party for
blasphemy.
But much of the post-debate reaction favored Paul.
Genuine conservatives recognized one of their own. Pat
Buchanan spoke for many when he praised the honest Texan.
The Republican Party should indeed kick him out; it has
no room for men like him.
If Giuliani gets the Republican nomination next
year, he will enjoy the support of the Compassionate
Conservative, George W. Bush. Naturally.
Ecrasez L'Infame
National Public Television has recently outdone
itself with a series of specials on "the" Inquisition (it
seems there was only one) and Martin Luther, all of them
relentlessly, one-sidedly, and bigotedly anti-Catholic.
None of the several I saw made any serious effort to
balance propaganda with any other perspective. It was all
a simple liberal morality tale of Progressive heroes and
victims versus Reactionary villains (i.e., the Church of
Rome).
Luther's only flaws, apparently, were a bit of
intolerance (toward those who were even more Progressive
than he was) and anti-Semitism. Well, nobody's perfect.
He was still "one of the great emancipators in human
history."
The obvious question was left hanging: Why on earth
does the Catholic Church still exist?
+ + +
"'Though liberals talk a great deal about hearing
other points of view,' Bill Buckley once observed, 'it
sometimes shocks them to learn that there =are= other
points of view.'" REGIME CHANGE BEGINS AT HOME -- a new
selection of my Confessions of a Reactionary Utopian --
is culled from my most recent lucid moments. If you have
not seen my monthly newsletter, SOBRAN'S, yet, give my
office a call at 800-513-5053 and request a free sample,
or better yet, subscribe to for one year (at $44.95) or
two ($85.00). New subscribers get two gifts with their
subscription. More details can be found at the
Subscription page of my website, www.sobran.com.
Already a subscriber? Consider a gift subscription
for a priest, friend, or relative.
--- Joseph Sobran
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Read this column on-line at
"http://www.sobran.com/wanderer/w2007/w070531.shtml".
This column copyright (c) 2007 by THE WANDERER, the
National Catholic Weekly founded in 1867,
www.thewandererpress.com. Reprinted with permission.
This column may not be published in print or Internet
publications without express permission of THE WANDERER.
You may forward it to interested individuals if you use
this entire page, including the following disclaimer:
"THE WANDERER is available by subscription. Write
subscription@thewandererpress.com for information.
Subscription price: $50 per year; $30 for six months.
Checks can be sent to The WANDERER, 201 Ohio Street,
Dept. JS, St. Paul, MN 55107.
"SOBRAN'S and Joe Sobran's syndicated columns are
available by e-mail subscription. For details and
samples, see http://www.sobran.com/e-mail.shtml, write
PR@griffnews.com, or call 800-513-5053."
This page copyright (c) 2007 by THE VERE COMPANY.