A Republican almost made me burst into tears. In a good way.
The Republican in question is former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, who chaired the 9/11 Commission. Here's part of what Kean said:
"When we talk about the balance between civil liberties and our preparations to keep ourselves safe, the time to act is now. We can't wait for a decade or more to get the balance right between national security and civil liberties. We can't wait for the executive branch suddenly to signal 'all clear.' We can't wait for others to protect our freedoms. We think our liberties and our system of government are very special. And of course they are. We take great pride in our democratic institutions and freedoms. But there's nothing magical about their continuation. They continue because people struggle every day to defend them."
Seriously, I welled up. I'm that easy. That I almost burst into tears will not shock anyone who read my recent "No Soup For Yoo" post or my earlier heartfelt shriek about what I see as our authentic patriotic duty to stare down death if the government can only keep us safe by making America stop being America.
Kean's words traveled a slow path to reach my ears at exactly the right moment. He spoke them in New York City back in May. Five months later, on the other side of the country, I was shaken and reeling badly from finishing up The Dark Side and its brilliant account of America's shameful fall into state-sanctioned torture. Somehow that's when one of the sponsors of the Kean event decided to distribute audio of the event over the web. Thanks to the commonplace miracle of podcasting, the audio just showed up on my computer and, in turn, on my cell phone. So I was driving northeast through Seattle the other day, listening for free to an event that happened months ago and thousands of miles away, when 51 minutes and 40 seconds into the recording Gov. Kean began to speak. To me. Or so it seemed.
What inspired me most about Kean's words was their specificity. Those specifics -- and the GOP messenger delivering the specifics -- reinforced my growing certainty that an Obama Administration would be able to join with sensible Republicans to orchestrate what our country needs most right now: a radical swing back to the sane center of American politics. Kean's specifics are a reminder of how much is at stake now and of how bad things have been since 9/11.
Consider the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. I hadn't heard of it. Maybe you haven't either. Here's how Kean explained the board and its exasperating fate:
"The commission also felt very very strongly there needed to be checks and balances even within the executive (branch) itself. For this reason, the 9/11 Commission recommended -- and the Congress followed our recommendations and enacted -- a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board within the executive branch. Now, unfortunately, that board was very slow in getting started. Created in December 2004, the board did not hold its first meeting until 2006. And its record, frankly, has been a terrible disappointment. The board raised no objection to detention and interrogation practices or even to warrantless wiretaps. It let the White House edit its annual report. And it recommended no corrective actions. The board, in other words, has been missing in action."
He went on:
"Congress took several important steps in 2007 to sort of reconstitute that board and strengthen it, to make the board an independent agency within the executive branch, to require Senate confirmation of all board members, to provide a term of office, to provide political balance, to grant the board subpoena powers, and to require reports twice a year to Congress, and its findings, conclusions, and recommendations as to the state of our civil liberties. Well, the old board lapsed. The White House, so far, has taken no steps to reconstitute the new board under the new law which Congress passed."
Since May, when Kean said that, there is some pseudo-progress to report. President Bush has nominated at least one person to the board, Ronald Rotunda. Professor Rotunda's nomination needs Senate approval.
Before I show you something you may not want to see, let me quote Gov. Kean's opinion that America needs "a board with backbone and leadership. The country badly needs a strong, consistent voice inside the executive branch in support of civil liberties."
OK. You can look now.
That's the nominee, Professor Rotunda, on the president's right. If you find it mildly unsettling that the president has his arm around a nominee to a board that needs "backbone and leadership," you may be further unsettled by the person looped in the president's other arm. She's the nominee's wife, Kyndra Rotunda, who spoke the following words last month in testimony before members of a Senate judiciary subcommittee:
"The U.S. released several detainees to Albania. After a few weeks in Albania, the detainees said they preferred captivity in Guantanamo Bay to freedom in Albania. One Guantanamo Bay detainee said, '. . . If people say that there is mistreatment in Cuba with the detainees, those type speaking are wrong; they treat us like a Muslim not a detainee.'"
It's OK. Just breathe into this paper bag. Here, I'll skip a few lines so you can have a moment to recover.
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Now, just so you can be sure I'm not quoting some accidental, unrepresentative gaffe, here are a few choice sentences from "Don't Close Gitmo," the very same Kyndra Rotunda's June commentary in the Washington Times: "What's more, detainees seem to like it (sic) Gitmo. One was offered release and decided to stay. Another liked it so much that he asked if his family could move in with him. Just ask the Uighurs (Chinese minority) terrorists. Last year the United States transferred a group of them from Gitmo to freedom in Albania, the only country in the world who would take them, other than China. We did not transfer them to the Chinese because we were concerned they would suffer torture there. After they spent time in Albania, they said they preferred Gitmo."
Don't, under any circumstances, tell Kyndra Rotunda that you need an IRS audit like you need a hole in your head. She will arrange for you to get both and then wonder why you aren't thanking her for making your wishes come true.
Amazing. Again, as a counterpoint to these notions that Gitmo is fundamentally a nifty place to bring your family, let me just urge people to read The Dark Side , which was nominated for a National Book Award last week.
Let's move permanently beyond Kyndra Rotunda and her husband, the president's choice to protect our civil liberties from overreach by the executive branch. Let's close how we started with some perspective from our Republican friend, Gov. Kean:
"I think our president, President Bush, gave one great speech. If you remember, that was right after 9/11. And in that speech, just days after September 11th, he said, 'I ask you to uphold the values of America and remember why so many people have come here. We are in a fight for our principles and our first responsibility is to live by them.' So much has happened since that speech."
Let's get our country back. Again, as Kean said: "We take great pride in our democratic institutions and freedoms. But there's nothing magical about their continuation. They continue because people struggle every day to defend them."