Will Republican Senators Save the Republic? By Ray McGovern

Wednesday 21 December 2005

I'll say this for Vice President Dick Cheney: he puts it right out there, whether it is trying to ensure legal protection for those torturing prisoners, or insisting - as he did on Tuesday - that in wartime the president "needs to have his powers unimpaired." And Cheney and Bush would have us believe it is they who define the constitutional powers of the president.

Supporters of this view are dredging up quotes from former officials like George H.W. Bush's attorney general William Barr who, according to the Washington Post, contends:

"The Constitution's intent when we're under attack from outside is to place maximum power in the president, and the other branches - and especially the courts - don't act as a check on the president's authority against the enemy."

So there it is. The George W. Bush administration contends that the president's power as commander in chief during wartime means that he is above the law. Small wonder that he bristled at a question from the press about "unchecked power." Whether authorizing torture or wiretaps, he reserves the right to act irrespective of domestic or international law.

The question is whether Congress and the courts will continue to roll over and play dead, or whether men and women of principle honor their oath to "defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic." Some hope can be seen in a recent remark by Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, who told reporters:

"I took an oath of office to the Constitution. I didn't take an oath of office to my party or to my president."
Will enough Republican senators honor that oath? Our system of checks and balances hangs in the balance, so to speak. The president has thrown down the gauntlet by declaring he will continue to authorize eavesdropping that, by law, requires a court order. Will senators pick up the gauntlet, or will they run away home to grandmother's house for Christmas?

Is it fair to pin sole responsibility on Republican senators? No, it's not fair. But that is the way it is. One looks in vain to the other side of the aisle for the courage that the times require. But what about Democrat senators - the gutsy Russ Feingold and the eloquent Robert Byrd? However courageous, they are not well positioned to affect the outcome of this constitutional crisis.

Rather, the Democrats have slender reeds to lean on - take Sen. Jay Rockefeller, for example. Briefed on the illegal eavesdropping program, Rockefeller let himself be intimidated by Cheney into tacit acquiescence. Sure, he wrote a letter to Cheney (and kept a CYA copy, which he has now given the press). But why did he limit his horizon to Cheney? Did it not occur to the ranking minority member of the Senate Intelligence Committee to go to Cheney's supervisor?

On Tuesday, Senate intelligence committee chair Pat Roberts ridiculed Rockefeller for "feigning helplessness." Roberts is certainly in position to know, since Rockefeller has made helplessness a career, and thus made Roberts' task easy. Sen. Rockefeller's obeisance to the chair is matched only by US Marine Roberts' "Semper Fi" to the party and the president. This is important, since the White House has already succeeded in ensuring that Roberts and Rockefeller will play leadership roles in any Senate investigation of the eavesdropping.

Initially, it appeared that since constitutional and legal considerations dominate the issue, the hearings would be orchestrated and led by Senate judiciary committee chair Arlen Specter, who expressed deep concern at the revelations concerning eavesdropping. That was a hopeful sign, even though the ranking Democrat on Judiciary, Patrick Leahy, is another weak sister. The original Patriot Act was rushed through while Leahy slept, and a year ago he expressed optimism - without a tinge of remorse - that arch-defender of unbridled presidential power, Roberto Gonzales, would be readily confirmed as Attorney General.

From Republic to Empire

Let's hope history does not repeat itself. The constitution of ancient Rome was put in place in 510 BC, when the republicans overthrew the last of the Roman kings, Tarquin the Proud. As was the case 2300 years later in the newborn USA, the introduction of constitutional order meant the rule of law and not of kings, providing liberty under law for every Roman citizen. That experiment lasted almost five centuries, until the Roman senators fell down on the job.

Although Cicero warned, with pointed eloquence, of the dangers to the Republic, in the end his warnings proved no match for strongmen like Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompey. They wrapped themselves in republican virtue when it suited them, but they lacked any serious belief in the fundamental principles that had formed republican Rome. They and their followers believed in themselves, and in their own vision of what Rome should be, and in little else. Plutarch tells us that the increasingly glaring unequal distribution of wealth served to make the situation exceedingly volatile. Sound familiar?

And so the Republic died, and Cicero died with it, his severed head and hands nailed to the "rostra," the platform in the forum from which he had warned the Roman people. The vision of the strongmen led first to civil war and then to empire.

Republican senators, don't let it happen here.


Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was an analyst at the CIA for 27 years, and is on the Steering Group of VIPS.