Some Administrations -- Not All -- Make Policy Decisions Based On Constitution

As America teeters on the edge of an economic meltdown, it behooves us to consider how and why we are in this mess. Permit me to suggest that the problem is more basic--and, in a sense, less complicated--than any individual policy that was adopted or rejected during the past eight (or ten or twelve) years.

The problem has been a President and an administration that has operated far outside of what I call America's constitutional culture. As we prepare to choose a new President, we would be well advised to look closely at the candidates' approach to that culture, because a willingness to operate within its constraints will tell us much more than the issue papers and campaign promises that are mainstays of electoral strategies.

A constitution does a lot of things: in its more pedestrian provisions, it lays down the mechanics of governing--how old must a person be to run for President? How shall the legislature be selected? More fundamentally, however, a constitution is a statement of national values--a moral code for our necessary civic infrastructure. America's constitution places a high premium on protecting individual rights by limiting the scope of government power, by the separation of powers, and an insistence on checks and balances and the rule of law.

For the past eight years, the Bush-Cheney Administration has shown nothing but contempt for those constitutional constraints, and the policies it has favored have been consistent with that contempt.

It's not just the Patriot Act, NSA spying, or the establishment of the prison at Guantanamo, alarming as those and similar measures have been. It's not just the careful selection of judges who can be expected to favor the prerogatives of government over the rights of citizens. It's not just the use of signing statements to circumvent constitutionally prescribed policymaking processes. It can also be seen in the proliferation of no-bid contracts, privatization, cronyism, and lack of regulatory oversight that has precipitated our current crisis.

And make no mistake--the administration's anti-regulatory fervor is part and parcel of its general disdain for the rule of law, and has been a major contributor to our current crisis. Notwithstanding the florid rhetoric from self-proclaimed advocates of the free market, markets cannot function without clear ground rules and impartial umpires willing to enforce those rules.

I generally consider myself an optimist, but if we get four more years of lawless government, there may not be an America to recapture. There will certainly be a geographic place called the United States, but it will be unlike the America so many of us grew up in. I am as aware as anyone that this country has often failed to live up to its highest aspirations and constitutional institutions. But the damage done by the Bush Administration has been both systemic and insidious, because it has called those very aspirations into question. It will not be easily repaired.

Political partisans always insist that "this election is the most important ever." It's easy to dismiss overheated pronouncements (like my own!) as predictable election-year rhetoric. But as the old sayings go, even paranoids have enemies and even stopped clocks are right twice a day. When Americans go to the polls November 4th, we will be voting for far more than a President. We will be voting to reclaim--or to jettison what is left of--America's constitutional culture.

OffTheBus is publishing a variety of stories that cover the policy differences between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. If you have a policy expertise and would like to participate, please see Calling All Policy Gurus.

Comments

[CosmicIrony]

The 24/7 cable news imperative for something to cover has contributed to the decline in the level of political discourse in this country. Rather than thoughtful consideration of the deeper currents in our society, we are bombarded with ephemeral minutia, for example the incessant "horserace" measurements of 1% changes in instant polls. In such an environment an essay such this is a welcome relief, and perhaps a hope for the future.

The analogy of plate tectonics is perhaps more telling than the horserace: while people are distracted by relatively insignificant political developments, our freedoms and the rule of law are being lost as the elites rise in a great subduction zone, the slow motion clash of wealth and democracy. We can only hope that our civil liberties will rise again, in new mountains of progress.