Published on Monday, February 2, 2004 by The Palm Beach Post (Florida)
Danger of Imperious Presidency
by Tom Blackburn
Can Washington rule the world? Do we want to? Those should be the main questions in
this year's presidential election.
To turn my cards face up: Nobody who tried to rule the world ever succeeded, and I don't
think we are smart enough to do a good job of it. But the questions are urgent. Influential
members of the administration make no bones about their answers being "yes."
President Bush the Younger blows hot and cold, but mostly hot. Citizens never got a
chance to weigh in.
Think tanks are full of empire talk, pro and con, but in reviewing some of their output in
the Feb. 2 Business Week, Stan Crock offered a very useful insight. He criticized one
author for failing to distinguish "between a nation that is imperious, which the U.S. is, and
one that is imperialist, which America isn't." Imperious means domineering, dictatorial or
overbearing, as in, "You are either with us or against us."
The sun never sets on Halliburton, but Washington isn't seeking an empire. It does insist
on its right, as a superpower, to call all the shots and to start wars on suspicion of evil
intentions.
The electorate wasn't prepared for that. In the 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush talked about
walking humbly in the world. Even before 9/11, though, he was giving the back of his hand
to the world, trashing treaties and
disdaining international agencies whose only clout comes from the good example of
nations strong enough to ignore them. He dissed not only the leaders who challenged him
but chums like Mexico's Vicente Fox and Britain's Tony Blair. About the only one who
hasn't felt his tongue is that old KGB operative, Vladimir "Pootie Poot" Putin in Russia.
Vice President Dick Cheney celebrated Christmas with a card suggesting: "And if a
sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can
arise without His aid?"
Can we continue to swagger? It already hurts us. We need help to run down terrorists and
seize their bank accounts. Our death penalty, the last in the civilized world, makes some
of our partners leery about cooperating with us. There's no chance of changing that, with
the holder of the indoor record for executions in the Oval Office. But we started with that
obstacle, and raised others by gratuitously insulting people who are doing their best.
We need other people for more than anti-terrorist efforts. About 40 percent of Mr. Bush's
budget deficits is covered by foreign investors. If they decide that the Euro feels better, we
are in trouble. For that matter, a Chinese trade embargo could shut down all the malls of
America. We aren't as impregnable as Donald Rumsfeld thinks.
"Oderint dum metuan," said Caligula -- "Let them hate as long as they fear us." It won't
work on this little, blue planet. Along with terrorists, disease, pollution and economic
meltdown ignore political borders.
And, inevitably, as we do unto others we do to ourselves. The administration claims the
power to ignore -- not suspend, just ignore -- the Fourth and Sixth Amendments for
anyone, including citizens, whom it deems a suspected enemy combatant.
Democratic hopefuls devote a lot of hot air to what they did, didn't do or would have done
about Iraq before the war, but that's history now, and the administration has scheduled a
switch of the blame for the aftermath to the United Nations and the Iraqis themselves by
summer. They really need to talk in more global terms about how Gulliver, whom we can't
help being, should behave in Lilliput. It is a problem with more facets than I have been
able to suggest here.
Certainly, there isn't much else to talk about this year. Mr. Bush has maxed out the
credit card, so there is no real money for any of the programs Democrats might like to
talk about. Even Mr. Bush, with dreams of Mars in his mouth, isn't putting up enough new
money to get NASA to Daytona Beach.
We'll have to spend the next four years paying for the waywardness of the past four
years. That includes, spectacularly, the fiscal mess. But it won't bust the budget to talk
about what kind of neighbor we are going to be.
Until recently, the "soft power" of our human and civil rights record was admired -- and
sometimes envied -- around the world. People wanted to be like us, and that gave us a
power we have squandered. We'll no longer lead the world in promoting human dignity.
Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski told Mr. Bush last week that, where he comes
from, human dignity is more important even than democratic elections.
We seem more interested in imperiously promoting American power. People who used to
admire or envy us are no longer so sure. Like the deficit, that's something we will keep
paying for.
Copyright © 2004, The Palm Beach Post
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