Bush: “…a threat to the very structure of our government.”
Gore began his speech with an example of disregard for Constitutional safeguards. He recalled the case of Martin Luther King and his victimization by the FBI. Through illegal surveillance, the government tried to end his effectiveness as a civil rights leader, destroy his marriage, “and blackmail him into committing suicide.” Gore pointed out that J. Edgar Hoover’s intimidation and threats to FBI staff caused them to perform illegal wire taps and engage on spying activities that they clearly knew were wrong. Then in a stunning indictment of former CIA Director, George Tenant by saying that “much the same thing” had happened in the delivery of intelligence, clearly false, to the President to justify the Iraq war. The crowd came to its feet for one of six standing ovations during the speech.
The author of the attack on the Constitution was clearly named, the President of the United States. Gore cited the example of unauthorized National Security Agency (NSA) “spying on large numbers of Americans for the last four years and eavesdropping on large volumes of telephone calls, e-mail messages and other internet traffic inside the United States.” Bush’s assurances that nothing like this was happening without appropriate judicial processes was cited as an example of false statements to serve the ends of executive power.
Bush: Assumes powers that “the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution – an all powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free.”
Gore cited Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Paine to make his case. He quoted Madison’s argument that the accumulation of “all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands...” is ‘the very definition of tyranny.’” This was a critical point that the former Vice President returned to throughout the speech: the United States was established with the goal of rule by law and not by men, rule by participation not tyranny. His presentation made it very clear that Bush represents a new form of despotism that seeks power to meet its ends rather than competing for power in the political process.
Gore was clearly referring to Bush when he said, “A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.” As his central point, he focused on the case of domestic spying on Americans by the NSA for four years without any judicial authorization or legal basis. Gore illustrated the President’s all out power by citing additional acts of executive malfeasance. He accused Bush of arguing for “a heretofore unrecognized inherent power to seize and imprison any American citizen that he alone determines to be a threat to our nation…” and denying those citizens the rights to talk to a lawyer or even challenge the basis for the arrest. Gore left his prepared text at this point and said “No such right exists…it is foreign to our Constitution.”
Gore noted the Bush claim that “he has the authority to kidnap individuals in foreign countries and deliver them for imprisonment and interrogation….” He quoted the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan who said that the material obtained from torture was “useless. We are selling our souls for dross. It is in fact positively harmful.” He then cited Yale Law School’s Harold Koh who says that the chief executive who assumes the power to commit torture “…has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution.”
“The Executive Branch has now put our constitutional design at grave risk. The stakes for America’s representative democracy are far higher than has been generally recognized.
Previous Constitutional abuses were corrected but this crisis is different.
Gore cited past examples of the United States lapsing into unconstitutional periods of citizen abuse: President John Adam’s Alien and Sedition Acts whereby political opponents were arrested; Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus; President Wilson’s Red Scare and Palmer raids; the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II; and COINTELPRO, domestic spying and disruption of political opponents, e.g., the FBI acts against Rev. King. He pointed out that these periods of unconstitutional behavior were cyclical and were corrected after the abuses were identified and challenged.
He provided a dire warning when he pointed out that, “There are reasons for concern this time around that conditions may be changing and that the cycle (of correction) may not repeat itself.” He cited three reasons for concern. First, there has been an accelerating accumulation of Presidential power given the emphasis on foreign threats. Second, the administrations argument that the war on terror will “last for the rest of our lives” provides the perfect rationale to hang onto accumulated power. Finally, highly sophisticated eavesdropping and surveillance technologies make it easy for the Executive Branch to expand its reach to ever larger polls of “dissenters.”
No checks and balances from the judiciary or Congress
Recently appointed Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts and nominee Alito advance a legal theory called “the unitary executive.” This theory argues that the President is essentially the sole decision maker for the government and should be allowed to exercise that latitude. Gore accused Bush of making these judicial appointments “to ensure that the courts will not serve as an effective check on executive power.”
Congress has served as an enabler of the Bush accumulation and exercise of Presidential power. With Senator Diane Feinstein, D, CA, in the audience, Gore noted the lax oversight that Congress gives the executive and even its own functions. Budget bills are passed without many members of Congress even reading the bill. The notion of “congressional oversight,” hearings on key legislation, has been virtually abandoned. House-Senate conference committees to reconcile legislative differences no longer include Democrats. He referred to “the pitiful state of our legislative branch” as the key components that allows Presidential abuses of the Constitution.
He noted the quiescence of the legislative and judicial braches and the effective self-censorship of the media enable this process as never before. He was particularly harsh on television news, the primary source for political information for most Americans. Gore called for ongoing and expanded protection of the Internet as the citizens last hope for political dialog and advocacy.
A call for political courage. Our founders were threatened with hanging. What is holding current leaders back?
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