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BILL OF WRONGS -- THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH'S ASSAULT ON AMERICA'S FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS |
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CONCLUSION We write in the first person plural because, though one of us left this project at the end of January 2007, it remained, until the final period was put in the proper place by our fabulous production editor, Beth Pearson, a collaborative endeavor involving both of us. Together we planned and revised chapters, abandoned dead ends, fretted over the Bush administration's contempt for human life, human rights, the rule of law, our Constitution, and the idea of a nation as commonweal in which we all have a stake. We also argued over sentence length. Yet we're wildly optimistic that the state of our republic will improve. The healing of our very sick body politic -- and the restoration of constitutional government -- began the day after the 2006 elections. Our optimism is informed not so much by our stewards of the public trust in Washington but by the workaday American heroes in Oregon, South Carolina, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Texas ... people from both political parties and people from no political party. The principled women and angry men who stand up to the bullies, bastards, and ideologues who have hijacked our government and came dangerously close to destroying a document created by colonial subjects resolved to re-create themselves as citizens of a constitutional democracy. The fight ain't over. But it's the courage and intelligence of the men and women we encountered while working on this book, and the courage and skill of the lawyers who went to court with them, that limited the damage George W. Bush has done to our Constitution since he took the oath of office in January 2001. (Our reporting has disabused us of the common notion that the current programmatic assault on our constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties began only after the terrorist attacks of September 2001.) If they belong to a profession held in lower regard than loan sharks, every lawyer we came to know while working on this book is a public good in his or her own right. While defending their clients, they're defending our Constitution. Some work for the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the National Lawyers Guild, People For the American Way, and the oxymoronic Texas Civil Rights Project. Others have no institutional affiliation but, in the spirit of the late Maury Maverick, Jr., of San Antonio, can't seem to pass up a good fight when they see one. Judges are lawyers, too. The Article III judiciary is the crown jewel of our democratic form of government: 875 judges, appointed for life and therefore completely insulated from political pressure. "For life" means George W. Bush's legacy on the federal bench will still be in place when George and Laura's twin daughters are sexagenarians playing croquet on the lawn at Kennebunkport. The harm Bush and Cheney have inflicted on the federal bench should keep us all awake at night. The country is still blessed with a (diminishing) number of federal judges who refuse to exchange our freedom for a false security. And just as a blind hog can find an acorn once in a while, George W. Bush can appoint a gem of a jurist, like Judge John E. Jones III, of the Middle District of Pennsylvania. But if you see something we don't in the current crop of white Republican men who would be president and are promising to keep fear alive, Guantanamo open, and the federal courts in the hands of the Federalist Society, please call. If we don't hear from you, we'll assume you're writing your checks, walking your blocks, and working the phone banks to elect the woman or man who will begin the hard work of cleaning up the mess the "loyal Bushies" will have left us after eight interminable years. We recognize the dedicated public service of Republican senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe (and former senator Lincoln Chafee), who refused to drink the Kool-Aid with Dick Cheney. But we also know that none of them could compete with the flat-earthers who make the cut in today's Republican presidential primary. Our continued optimism is contingent on who ends up in the White House in January 2009. And in control of the Senate, where federal judges are confirmed. And in an American public that will continue to elect officials who recognize the Constitution as the document that created and defines our republic. So we conclude our conclusion. Never hesitant to recycle a good line when we find one, we'll quote ourselves quoting Matthew Chapman. It was Matthew who reminded us of the democratic social evolution by which the best and the brightest in this country rise to the occasion to do the very best for the country. A British expat living in New York (and the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin), Matthew was covering the Pennsylvania courtroom fight between eleven parents who sued to keep the Book of Genesis out of their kids' high school biology classroom and a radical religious school board that considered the Bible foundational science. There was a dead silence by the time one of those parents concluded a witness-stand soliloquy that no one sitting in the courtroom that September afternoon in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, will ever forget. There are a lot of people that don't care. But I care. It crosses my line.... There have been letters written about the plaintiffs. We've been called atheists, but we're not. I don't think it matters to the Court, but we're not. We're said to be intolerant of other views. Well, what am I supposed to tolerate? A small encroachment on my First Amendment rights? Well, I'm not going to. I think this is clear what these people have done. And it outrages me. It was Matthew, sitting in the jury box where reporters were watching the trial, who turned to his American colleagues and said in a whisper, "You know, I think the people we're looking at here are the very best of your country." Spot-on, as we say in Texas. Raise hell. Keep fightin'. And don't forget to laugh once in a while. |