Home > Conservatives Endorse the Fuhrer Principle - Our leader über alles
Conservatives Endorse the Fuhrer Principle - Our leader über alles
by Open-Publishing - Friday 17 February 20061 comment
Attack-Terrorism Governments USA
by Paul Craig Roberts
Last week’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference signaled the transformation of American conservatism into brownshirtism. A former Justice Department official named Viet Dinh got a standing ovation when he told the CPAC audience that the rule of law mustn’t get in the way of President Bush protecting Americans from Osama bin Laden.
Former Republican congressman Bob Barr, who led the House impeachment of President Bill Clinton, reminded the CPAC audience that our first loyalty is to the U.S. Constitution, not to a leader. The question, Barr said, is not one of disloyalty to Bush, but whether America "will remain a nation subject to, and governed by, the rule of law or the whim of men."
The CPAC audience answered that they preferred to be governed by Bush. According to Dana Milbank, a member of the CPAC audience named Richard Sorcinelli loudly booed Barr, declaring: "I can’t believe I’m in a conservative hall listening to him say Bush is off course trying to defend the United States." A woman in the audience told Barr that the Constitution placed Bush above the law and above non-elected federal judges.
These statements gallop beyond the merely partisan. They express the sentiments of brownshirtism. Our leader über alles.
Only a few years ago this same group saw Barr as a conservative hero for obtaining Clinton’s impeachment in the House. Obviously, CPAC’s praise for Barr did not derive from Barr’s stand on conservative principle that a president must be held accountable if he violates the law. In Clinton’s case, Barr’s principles did not conflict with the blind emotions of the politically partisan conservatives demanding Clinton’s impeachment.
In opposing Bush’s illegal behavior, Barr is simply being consistent. But this time, Barr’s principles are at odds with the emotions of the politically partisan CPAC audience. Rushing to the defense of Bush, the CPAC audience endorsed Viet Dinh’s Fuhrer Principle over the rule of law.
Why do the media and the public allow partisan political hacks, like Viet Dinh, to define Bush’s illegal actions as a national security issue? The purpose of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is to protect national security. FISA creates a secret court to which the president can apply for a warrant even after he has initiated spying. Complying with the law in no way handicaps spying for national security purposes. The only spying handicapped by the warrant requirement is spying for illegitimate purposes, such as spying on political opponents.
There are only two reasons for Bush to refuse to obey the law. One is that he is guilty of illegitimate spying for which no warrant would be issued by the FISA court. The other is that he is using "national security" to create unconstitutional powers for the executive.
Civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate writing in the Boston Phoenix says that Bush’s grab for "sweeping, unchecked power in direct violation of a statute would open a Pandora’s box of imperial possibilities." In short, it makes the president a dictator.
For years, the Republican Federalist Society has been agitating for concentrating more power in the executive. The members will say that they do not favor a dictator, just a check on the "imperial Congress" and "imperial judiciary." But they have not spelled out how the president can be higher than law and still be accountable, or, if he is only to be higher than some laws, but not other laws, and only in some circumstances, but not all circumstances, who draws the line through the law and defines the circumstances.
On Feb. 13, the American Bar Association passed a resolution belatedly asking President Bush to stop violating the law. "We cannot allow the U.S. Constitution and our rights to become a victim of terrorism," said bar association president Michael Grecco.
The siren call of "national security" is all the cover Bush needs to have the FISA law repealed, thus legally gaining the power to spy however he chooses, the protection of political opponents be damned. However, Bush and his Federalist Society Justice Department are not interested in having the law repealed. Their purpose has nothing to do with national security. The point on which the regime is insisting is that there are circumstances (undefined) in which the president does not have to obey laws. What those circumstances and laws are is for the regime to decide.
The Bush regime is asserting the Fuhrer Principle, and Americans are buying it, even as Bush declares that America is at war in order to bring democracy to the Middle East.
Forum posts
22 February 2006, 23:17
Dear Mr. Roberts,
I write as a bewildered fan. A fan because I truly admire your past service to our nation as a government official and your past contributions to our intellectual culture. Bewildered because your recent posting on www.antiwar.com compares America’s defense against terrorism to Nazi Germany and because, even more inexplicably, your opinion appears to be based on total fiction.
I woke up this last Saturday to the following message on my email:
"Last week’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference signaled the transformation of American conservatism into brownshirtism. A former Justice Department official named Viet Dinh got a standing ovation when he told the CPAC audience that the rule of law mustn’t get in the way of President Bush protecting Americans from Osama bin Laden" Paul Craig Roberts
If you are so enamored with totalitarianism, maybe you ought to return to your ancestral home.
I resisted the temptation to dismiss the message as another bigoted attack and asked for a source citation to what I assumed to be a made-up quotation. No reply. So I researched and to my surprise discovered that the cowardly email had indeed quoted your post on www.antiwar.com.
As it is obvious that you are writing without any first-hand knowledge of the facts, let me be very clear about what was said and what was not said. I did not, nor did anyone at CPAC to my knowledge, say that “the rule of law mustn’t get in the way of President Bush protecting Americans from Osama bin Laden.” Nor was there any standing ovation. I would have thought, before your post, that an accusation against an individual, an entire audience, and indeed a nation’s anti-terror strategy of being akin to Nazism would require a bit more responsibility to the facts.
Assuming some fealty to the truth remains, let me recount what I said during my debate with Bob Barr at CPAC. I acknowledged that conservatism derives from a tradition of healthy skepticism of governmental power. However, I said, “At times that healthy skepticism must unfortunately yield to a greater threat to our national security.” I posit that the question is not whether the President is above the law but rather whether anyone, including Congress, is above the Constitution, and specifically noted that “no one without operational knowledge of the details of the NSA program can come to a definitive conclusion as to its propriety or legality.”
Finally, I concluded, “At this time, the greatest threat to American liberty comes from al Qaeda and its associates who would seek to destroy this nation, not from the brave men and women who defend America and her people.”
If you disagree with any of the above points, I would love to engage you in a conversation. If you were there and differ in your recollection, I would ask to see your notes or better, that you check your facts with Bob Barr. If you were not at CPAC and did not observe that which you purported to describe, I hope you will come clean.
But nothing—nothing, sir—justifies your spurious accusation of “brownshirtism” against anyone, least of all against one who has suffered the tyranny of totalitarianism.
Thank you.
Viet D. Dinh