RAGGED THOTS

The United States was able to face down such threats as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany without indefinite detentions, widespread use of torture as an interrogative technique, or all-pervasive surveillance. But a smallish group of terrorists who can't even surface publicly abroad for fear they'll be swiftly killed by the mightiest military on earth? Time to break out the document shredder and do away with that pesky constitution.

If the answer to every legitimate congressional inquiry concerning presidential powers is that "we are at war" and that legislative questions concerning executive behavior are inappropriate, it becomes impossible for Congress to fulfill its constitutional mandate as a co-equal branch of government. At what point do the American people ask the obvious: What sort of war is this and exactly how long should a president have virtually indeterminate powers to wage it?

Yes, it is true that past presidents have taken on extraordinary wartime powers: In the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus; in World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the internment of Japanese citizens. But, in both cases, there existed a defined foe. With each, there was a sense of what victory meant and over whom that victory would be won. The Union would defeat the Confederacy; America and her allies would defeat the Axis powers. Even in the cold war, the ideology of communism had a clear home in the Soviet Union. Those conflicts would end with the defined enemy surrendering, being defeated, or the motivating ideology collapsing. However long it took, the American people knew there would be some sort of definite conclusion.

But, in President Bush's vision, the terrorist enemy remains amorphous. After September 11, Osama bin Laden was wanted "dead or alive." Then, as the Iraq war developed, Saddam Hussein became the ace of spades in the terrorist card deck. Now, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi is the new face of evil. The war, we are told, will not end with any one of these men's capture or death. It will continue until...until ...until when, exactly? Thus, the comparisons many make to previous U.S. conflicts are hardly applicable.

Neither are the comparisons to decisions of previous commanders-in-chief who put aside civil liberties. For the 40 years of the cold war, the United States held off a Soviet enemy that had the power to destroy the country several times over--yet civil liberties were never curtailed to the extent they are now. In the current struggle, which some call World War IV, Americans are being asked to sacrifice liberties in the face of an enemy that has less ability to damage us than the Soviets did. This is not to minimize the threat of Islamist fundamentalism, but it is essential to put the capabilities of the enemy in perspective.

# posted by Robert A. George @ 10:00 PM

Potential jurors for the trial of a 19-year-old charged in a bias attack in Howard Beach last summer have been asked some unusual questions during jury selection: Do they listen to rap music? Are they familiar with hip-hop culture? Yesterday, the prosecution and defense asked them how they feel about a certain longstanding epithet denigrating black people.

The epithet — or "the N-word," as the lawyer representing the defendant, Nicholas Minucci, repeatedly described it in court — may well be the crux of this racially charged and high-profile case.....

If Mr. Minucci is convicted in the attack, but the jury decides it was not motivated by racial hatred, then he will face a lower sentence.

Prosecutors hope to prove the attack was motivated by such a bias. The defense, meanwhile, is expected to suggest that a young man growing up in a mixed neighborhood in New York City uses "the N word" as a matter of course and that the word no longer carries the racially charged overtones it has historically.

Mr. Minucci's friends and family have said that the word is uttered today more in collegiality than hatred, and that its proliferation in rap music and everyday conversation among young people of various races and ethnicities has changed its meaning and impact.

At one point yesterday, Mr. Minucci's lawyer, Albert Gaudelli, surveyed 11 potential jurors, four of whom were black. He turned to a black man from Queens Village and asked him what he thought about "the N word," explaining that "the N word is going to be an issue in this case, and its use."

The man responded, "It depends on who's saying it and how it's being used."

Mr. Gaudelli said, "At one time, it had only one meaning, as a pejorative term, but today it means many things, or can mean many things." He motioned toward the prosecutors and said of the case, "They have to prove that it is bias."

He told the jury pool, "The word in and of itself dose not establish bias. Does everyone agree with that?" This elicited a murmur of faint agreement.

However, for all the assertions that the word has become harmless, neither Mr. Gaudelli nor anyone else in the courtroom actually uttered it.

# posted by Robert A. George @ 9:45 AM

President Bush has a bold new approach to immigration enforcement: He wants to police the Mexican border with symbolism.

That's the point of his proposal to send the National Guard to our border with Mexico. This represents Bush's final, desperate descent into Clintonian sleight of hand. He wants to distract enough of his supporters with the razzle-dazzle of "National Guard to the Border!" headlines that they won't notice he is pushing through Congress a proposal that essentially legalizes all the population influx from Latin America that has occurred in the past 10 years and any that might occur in the future.

That a president from the country's law-and-order party has been so blase about both when it comes to immigration presents an obvious opening to the opposition. Shrewder Democrats are picking up on it. A new report from the centrist Democratic group Third Way notes that from 2001 to 2004, border apprehensions declined 31 percent from the last four years of the Clinton administration, and apprehensions within the country dropped 36 percent. There were only 46 convictions for violations of laws against hiring illegals in all of 2004.

Bush's heart just isn't in enforcement. Perhaps it's a tribute to his sincerity that he is so bad at faking it. With his sympathy for the struggle of desperate people coming here for work, his "compassionate conservatism" doesn't stop at the Rio Grande. And it is reinforced by his chamber-of-commerce conservatism that wants to welcome the world's huddled masses as long as they will work without complaint on hot roofs for cheap wages.

# posted by Robert A. George @ 7:30 PM

Somebody said, you and John Howard appear to be so close, don't you have any differences? And I said, yes, he doesn't have any hair.
(Laughter.)
Look, ours is a world in which sometimes people tell you something and they don't mean it. In order to work together to make difficult decisions -- decisions of war and peace, decisions of security, decisions of trade -- you've got have somebody you talk to that tells you straight up what's on their mind. You know, politics sometimes produces people that will tell you one thing and don't mean it. It's really hard to be making rational decisions if somebody you're talking to just doesn't level with you.

And that's what I like about John Howard. He may not be the prettiest person on the block -- (laughter) -- but when he tells you something you can take it to the bank. He is a reliable partner. And we don't agree on 100 percent, of course. But the interesting thing, talking to John Howard, is that you can trust the man. And that's what is a necessary ingredient to be working together for
the common good.

# posted by Robert A. George @ 9:28 AM

Second, to secure our border we must create a temporary worker program.

...I support a temporary worker program that would create a legal path for foreign workers to enter our country in an orderly way, for a limited period of time....

Every worker who applies for the program would be required to pass criminal background checks. And temporary workers must return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay.
A temporary worker program would meet the needs of our economy, and it would give honest immigrants a way to provide for their families while respecting the law.
A temporary worker program would reduce the appeal of human smugglers and make it less likely that people would risk their lives to cross the border.

...And, above all, a temporary worker program would add to our security by making certain we know who is in our country and why they are here.

President Bush once saw the immigration issue as an opportunity to expand the Republican Party by attracting more Hispanic voters with a message of tolerance and inclusion. His nationally televised speech last night was an admission that the issue has now become a problem that, if not managed carefully, could quickly become a historic liability for his party.

The immigration debate that reopened in the Senate yesterday offers Republicans an unpalatable political trade-off. Disappointing conservative, anti-illegal-immigration forces could demoralize a crucial constituency and depress turnout in the November elections at a time when every vote appears important to the GOP. Energizing only those conservatives risks destroying the president's long-sought goal of building a durable Republican majority by normalizing his party's relations with the rapidly growing Latino community.

# posted by Robert A. George @ 10:15 AM