I am as big a fan of Andrew Sullivan as can be, but I was impressively disappointed by his memorial of the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I don’t disagree with the general point, that ten years on what is most salient is that our “homeland security” response – invasion of foreign countries, unregulated torture of any who are not U.S. citizens, and surveillance of all – is not an unalloyed good. But Sullivan’s adjectives betray a lilt of hysteria. And for Orwell’s sake, let us retire once and for all the phrase “shredding the constitution.” A decade is long enough for sober maturity. No constitutions were literally shredded. It is quite helpful to enumerate how its prescriptions were violated. But mindlessly repeated metaphors – Hannity and Palin will tell you Obama is shredding the constitution, and Dan Savage will tell you Nancy Pelosi is shredding the constitution, and Sullivan says Cheney shredded the constitution, and on and on and on – reveal real dangerous vacuity of mind.
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Perhaps the language is hyperbolic, but to shred the constitution as it is generally meant is to very explicitly disregard it. Unfortunately, the list is far longer than what Sullivan gives. The really disturbing thing is how Obama has only expanded upon the “shredding”, which few expected. This has been Glenn Greenwald’s beat for a while (e.g. his latest post http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/09/04/speech/index.html). The president unilaterally waged an illegal war in Syria, self-evidently protected speech is now being prosecuted (e.g. the previous link), torture has effectively continued (e.g. Bradley Manning), Guantanamo remains open and the kafkaesque indefinite detention therein continues, etc. I don’t mind the hyperbole so much because the reality is actually pretty awful.
quote from http://www.mediaroots.org/glenn-greenwalds-bill-of-rights-aclu-speech.php : “Now if you look at what the Constitution actually says and think about the fact that we tolerate this, that we allow the government to take our laptops and copy its contents without a whiff of suspicion or judicial oversight, or to target our fellow citizens for assassinations simple based upon the president’s unproven allegation, untested allegation that they are involved in terrorism. It’s hard to imagine what limits remain. The Fifth Amendment simply says as clearly as it can no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The Fourth Amendment guarantees that no person shall be subjected to unreasonable searches and seizures, they shall be safe in their papers and the facts that no warrant shall issue expect upon finding a probable cause. These policies cannot be more anti-ethical to those guarantees and yet this administration, far more than the previous one in these areas continuous to violate them.”
(back to me: worth also mentioning in my list from before the due process free targeting for assassination of a US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki)
(though i realize now greenwald alludes to that assassination in the above quote)
All I’m saying here is, give me Greenwald’s facts over Sullivan’s self-conscious, adjectivally driven, emoting here.