February 10, 2006
Changing Winds on Surveillance
By E.
J. Dionne Jr.
WASHINGTON -- This week the Bush administration was finally forced
out of its own pre-9/11 worldview -- and yes you read that right.
It happened because some brave Republicans stared the president
down and said: Stop.
Of course,
it is the administration that is always accusing its opponents
of pre-9/11 thinking. But for the last five years, President Bush,
Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove have been willing to put the
national unity required to fight terrorism in second place behind
their goals of aggrandizing presidential power and winning elections.
Can you get more pre-9/11 than that?
Instead
of seeking broad agreement on the measures required for our nation's
safety, they preferred to pick fights designed to make the Democrats
look soft and to claim the president could do pretty much anything
he wanted.
That's why
the White House made sure that Rove trumpeted the surveillance
issue before the Republican National Committee last month. A president
who cared more about national security than politics wouldn't
send out his top political lieutenant to make sure everyone knew
that the GOP planned to use a matter of such grave importance
to bash Democrats.
And it's
why Vice President Cheney, when asked this week by Jim Lehrer
if Bush were willing to work with Congress on the issue, barely
entertained the question. ``We believe, Jim, that we have all
the legal authority we need,'' Cheney replied immediately. Congress
could make any suggestions it wanted, but -- I add the italics
to underscore the point -- the White House would ignore whatever
it chose to ignore. ``We'd have to make a decision as
an administration whether or not we think it would help
and would enhance our capabilities.''
Translation
-- Cheney to Congress: Buzz off.
But this
time, some important members of the president's own party -- led
by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter -- decided
that enough is enough. As stewards of Congress' constitutional
authority, they could not stand by while the president claimed
the power to decide for himself what the law said and whether
he needed to follow it without any concern for what those meddlesome
members of Congress or judges might say.
And it's
wonderful to see what a few brave politicians can achieve. On
Thursday, the administration agreed to brief the Senate Intelligence
Committee on the program after having offered a similar briefing
to the comparable House committee the day before.
It was a
small crack in the wall, and Specter and his allies will have
to remain vigilant. Still, until this week, the White House had
flatly refused to offer such briefings. The winds are changing.
What's heartening
is how broad the Republican dissent from the administration has
been -- a sign that many Republicans have calculated that they'll
be better off in this fall's elections if they do their jobs,
even if this means challenging Bush and Cheney.
Rep. Heather
Wilson, R-N.M., who faces a tough re-election battle and has shown
streaks of independence in the past, demanded the briefings for
reasons straight out of a good civics textbook. ``The checks and
balances in our system of government are very important,'' she
said, noting that our ``constitutional structure has kept us safe
and free and the strongest country in the world for a very long
time.'' Yes, let's wave a flag for this Air Force veteran.
Sen. Mike
DeWine, R-Ohio, who also is up for re-election, said the ``this
country would be stronger and the president would be stronger''
if Bush accepted the idea that Congress might actually have a
role in lawmaking on the surveillance issue.
And Sen.
Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the administration was making a ``very
dangerous`` argument in claiming that it got the authority to
wiretap without supervision when Congress passed its use-of-force
resolution against terrorism. Graham said he never envisioned
that he was giving Bush -- or ``any other president'' -- ``carte
blanche'' on surveillance.
Focus for
a moment on Graham's reference to ``any other president.'' It's
instructive to imagine what Republicans in Congress (let alone
Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly) would say if a President Hillary
Rodham Clinton were to claim the sweeping authority Bush and Cheney
say they have. Is there any doubt that the entire Republican Party
would -- to cite a recent comment by Republican National Chairman
Ken Mehlman -- ``have a lot of anger'' and denounce Clinton for
arrogance, overreaching and power lust?
``The president
should have all the tools he needs to fight terrorism,'' Specter
said, ``but we also want to maintain our civil liberties.'' Now
there is a perfect expression of patriotic, post-9/11 thinking.
©
2006, Washington Post Writers Group
