Senator Rand Paul spoke for as long as his aching feet and
stretched-to-the-limit bladder would accommodate. Some of us now know what had
gotten him so lathered up. For over a month he’d been trying, unsuccessfully,
to get the Justice Department to answer a couple of fundamentally important
questions. First, is it legal to use drones to kill American citizens on U.S.
soil without due process? Second, “Can the President have the power to decide
when the Bill of Rights does or doesn’t apply?”
Attorney General Eric Holder finally responded earlier
today. “No!” he said, to the first question. He offered no opinion on the
second.
As Senator Paul filibustered, wolfing down on occasional
candy bar between words, a group of Republican senators were being wined and
dined by the President at the Jefferson Hotel, feasting on Maryland blue crab
risotto, Colorado lamb acai, lobster thermidor, prime beef, and heart of guana
chocolate tart. Two of Senator Paul’s colleagues who attended the President’s
dinner weren’t amused with the filibuster. Senator John McCain called his
concerns “totally unfounded.” Senator Lindsey Graham, who had been a Brennan
opponent, told the news media that the filibuster had changed his mind and then
declared himself to now be a Brennan supporter. Even some of the good senator’s
normally reliable friends in the media scolded him. The Wall Street Journal
said that his reasoning didn’t come close to matching his showmanship.
What’s next for Senator Paul? Some are saying there’s a
Presidential bid in his future. I
honestly doubt he’s thinking about that. He’s more concerned the future of our
Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The political establishment believes it has settled things.
They’re reminding us of 9-11, as if we need reminding. They’re telling us that
we’re the good guys. We’ve got a President who’s very bright. He can even be
charming when he puts his mind to it. He’d never entertain the thought of
abusing political power. Therefore, Rand Paul must be paranoid.
A little over four years ago, Barack Obama spoke at the
National Archives. He began by chiding the previous administration for setting
aside Constitutional principles as “luxuries” and employing an ad hoc legal
approach to fighting the war on terror. He decried the use of warrantless
wiretaps, military tribunals, and the Patriot Act. It was a great start. If
only he’d stopped at that. But, then he launched into the deep, describing his new
program of “prolonged preventive detention” to incarcerate anyone who “might”
engage in some loosely defined future act of war against the United States. How
would this be done? By constructing a “legal regime” and “reshaping the
standards.” Apparently the Fifth Amendment and the old notion of due process
were too confining. The litmus test became the possibility that someone “might”
do something.
That was four years ago. It’s gotten worse over time. The
abuse of the Espionage Act of 1917, a kill or capture list that he personally
reviews every day, drones, programs like Ragtime P, and expanded surveillance
of innocent American citizens are all part of our new reality.
How does he get away with it? Barack Obama is endowed with
an unusual blend of gifts. He’s charming, intelligent, and wily. He has a special gift for making the road to
perdition seem like the primrose path, using clever catch phrases like “we’ve
got to protect the American people.”
Unfortunately, it’s an all too familiar historical refrain.
Politicians often abuse power. When Andrew Jackson didn’t like a Supreme Court
decision, he told Justice John Marshall “You have your decision, now try to
enforce it.” Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court. When asked
about his criminal activity by David Frost, Richard Nixon said, “If the
President does it, it’s not illegal.”
But there’s more to it than Barack Obama’s wiles and charms.
It has a lot to do with us and our collective frame of mind. While the back
room shredding of the Constitution is going on, many of us seem preoccupied
with whether or not Beyoncé lip synched. And, didn’t we love seeing the First
Lady, flanked by the palace guard, announcing the Oscar for best picture. Style,
it seems, is far more comforting than substance.
We’re living in a precarious time. Power’s being abused, we’re
complacent, and few are willing to stand in the gap for the people. German
academic Milton Mayer described this social confluence as: “the gradual
habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to
receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was
so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could
not understand.”
Thankfully, Rand Paul stood in the gap. Some say he was
driven by paranoia. If he was, we need to pray for a lot more like him.
