Backing Bush

One of the more absurd complaints leveled against President Bush during his tumultuous tenure in office is that, in combating terrorism, he's eviscerated the Constitution. This hysteria is not confined to critics in the blogosphere or strident left-wing magazines such as the Nation but is found, as well, in mass-market newspapers and magazines. A citizen who reads, in a vacuum, editorials and oped columnists in the New York Times, say, might believe that since September 11 America, led by the Bush administration, has become a police state.

The latest round of hyperbolic arguments offered by anti-administration partisans concerns the acquiescence of Congress to put off for six months any revisions to Mr. Bush's allowance of wiretapping of telephone calls that are suspected to contain discussion of possible terrorism.

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, writing in that magazine's current issue, claims that Mr. Bush has "betrayed his oath to defend the Constitution," and what's worse, from his point of view, is that Democrats were too politically frightened to oppose him.

Hardly anyone would disagree that the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is badly outdated, needs overhaul; it's the extent of the changes that has Democrats in a dither.

Mr. Alter begins his column: "I hate to sound melodramatic about it, but while everyone was at the beach or ‘The Simpsons Movie' on the first weekend of August, the U.S. government shredded the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the one requiring court-approved ‘probable cause' before Americans can be searched or spied upon."

The author's essay is a role reversal of sorts: On election night in 2000, Mr. Alter, perhaps sleep deprived, was seen on MSNBC in the wee hours fairly ranting that Vice President Gore was cheated and should be granted the presidency because he won the popular vote. Unless I'm mistaken, that seems to be an example of "shredding " the Constitution.

What's particularly galling about the inflamed rhetoric of Mr. Bush's detractors — doing exactly what they accuse him of — is that there's no historical context to the opinions. Public and private education has devolved to such a point that it's not surprising few people are familiar with President Wilson's actions during World War I, but it's disgraceful that supposedly learned journalists, professors, and politicians are either ignorant of his policies or conveniently choose to ignore them.

Wilson, a Democrat, was successful in asking Congress to pass the Sedition Act of 1918, a piece of legislation that made it illegal to say, write, or print anything that was deemed "disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive" about the government's involvement in the war.

Approximately 2,000 people were convicted of this new crime, most notably socialist Eugene Debs, who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and later granted clemency by Wilson in 1921. If a president of Wilson's beliefs were in power today, one wonders about the fate of Steven Levitt, who, in the New York Times blog "Freakonomics" of August 8, asks the question, "If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?"

The Democratic Party's most revered icon of the 20th century, Franklin Roosevelt, was not a personal liberties absolutist either: In 1942, months after Pearl Harbor, he ordered the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans, about two-thirds of whom were citizens, to "relocation centers" in Western America. FDR's edict, which was met with little opposition from the public, wasn't rescinded until 1944.

It's not difficult to imagine the justified outcry if Mr. Bush, like Wilson, effectively suspended First Amendment rights. However, in the modern communications industry, which is vastly more expansive than the one Wilson grappled with, Mr. Bush and members of his administration are subjected daily to withering critiques, some "scurrilous," some rational, and no one has been jailed or fined for objecting to his wartime decisions.

The New York Times's editorial page has, among the elite daily newspapers, been virulent — some would say screeching — in its opposition to almost every decision Mr. Bush makes. This includes, repeatedly, castigating the president over the FISA brouhaha, with the refrain that the administration is "stonewalling" and denying Americans information about the issue. On August 11, a Times editorialist concluded: "If Congress once again allows itself to be cowed by Mr. Bush's fearmongering, it must accept responsibility for undermining the democratic values that separate this nation from the terrorists that Mr. Bush claims to be fighting." One can ignore the ridiculous notion by the writer that Mr. Bush is merely "claiming" to combat the terrorists who could at any time, without warning, inflict catastrophic damage on these shores. After all, it's of a piece with the daily's drumbeat that Mr. Bush can't be trusted on virtually any matter of national importance.

Still, less than 18 months from now a new president will be in charge — quite possibly, if not probably, a Democrat — and the extraordinarily difficult job of protecting Americans won't disappear with a turn of the calendar page.

Should Senators Clinton or Obama replace Mr. Bush it's entirely reasonable to speculate as to whether the current opinion makers who insist this president is "shredding" the Constitution will apply the same standards to his successor.

Don't count on it.

Mr. Smith writes a column for the weekly New York Press.