Captain Future's Log

The Speech

The Internet was buzzing on Monday about Al Gore's speech. Several news sites and blogs reproduced the transcript. On first look I saw some strong statements, nothing extraordinary, and nothing very special about the language. I wasn't sure why a speech by Al Gore was so important at this point in the ongoing attempt to bring attention to a constitutional crisis Washington and the rest of the country seems to be snoozing through.

It was billed for days as a major speech responding to the constitutional crisis of the White House electronic spying, which a story in the Tuesday New York Times asserts was very, very large, and turned up information almost exclusively on innocent Americans. I did notice the Zogby poll that showed a majority of Americans believed Congress should consider impeaching the president for spying on Americans. But other polls had shown the public either apathetic or more interested in claims of protecting their safety than in this huge executive power grab which after all had begun well before the 2004 election.

Then quite late I finally caught the C-Span replay of the speech itself, and I understood what all the fuss was about. Gore has been in the process of remaking his rhetoric style since his brief retreat after the 2000 Supreme Court coronation. In the past year or two he's made some speeches that were anything but the dull Al Gore of yore---or at least of reputation--employing growling loud snarls and broad gestures to make his points. I thought he was effective though I didn't see how that would really change the dynamic at this moment.

But this was a measured yet incisive speech, given with a stunningly controlled and effective delivery. He spoke quickly but distinctly, and he spoke in sentences (as if he knew how they were going to end when he began them, something not every politician has mastered). At time he almost whispered, and at appropriate times the growling cascade of louder words were there, but used briefly and judiciously.

There was applause many times but Gore didn't pause for it but very briefly; somehow it didn't sound like he was rushing over it (as John Kerry did in his convention acceptance speech) but neither did he ride it from point to point. When he finished the one hour address he did not go through the usual political ritual of the smiles, the waves and acknowledgment of the standing ovation. He finished, walked straight off the stage and didn't return.

It was in short the perfect delivery of a very serious speech that covered an enormous range of relevant subjects, organized to tell us just what kind of a fix we're in, how we got here, what we have to watch out for, and what he proposes to do. It was steeped in history---very relevant references to MLK (the FBI wiretaps), to Vietnam, even to presidential overreach in the Civil War, World War I and II. But always he came back to the American Revolution---fought in part for independence from a king--and the creation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

He began by referring to the White House illegal wiretapping, as the most proximate reason that "America's Constitution is in grave danger" because "a president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government."

He spoke of the threat beyond this act. "Once violated, the rule of law is in danger. Unless stopped, lawlessness grows. The greater the power of the executive grows, the more difficult it becomes for the other branches to perform their constitutional roles. As the executive acts outside its constitutionally prescribed role and is able to control access to information that would expose its actions, it becomes increasingly difficult for the other branches to police it. Once that ability is lost, democracy itself is threatened and we become a government of men and not laws. "

But Gore was perhaps more incensed, and almost caustic, by other violations:

For example, the President has also declared that he has a heretofore unrecognized inherent power to seize and imprison any American citizen that he alone determines to be a threat to our nation, and that, notwithstanding his American citizenship, the person imprisoned has no right to talk with a lawyer-even to argue that the President or his appointees have made a mistake and imprisoned the wrong person.

The President claims that he can imprison American citizens indefinitely for the rest of their lives without an arrest warrant, without notifying them about what charges have been filed against them, and without informing their families that they have been imprisoned.

At the same time, the Executive Branch has claimed a previously unrecognized authority to mistreat prisoners in its custody in ways that plainly constitute torture in a pattern that has now been documented in U.S. facilities located in several countries around the world.

Over 100 of these captives have reportedly died while being tortured by Executive Branch interrogators and many more have been broken and humiliated. In the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, investigators who documented the pattern of torture estimated that more than 90 percent of the victims were innocent of any charges.

This shameful exercise of power overturns a set of principles that our nation has observed since General Washington first enunciated them during our Revolutionary War and has been observed by every president since then - until now.

He described the Administration's assertion of its inherent powers. Then he asked the key legal and constitutional question, that to my knowledge no one in the public spotlight has yet asked, so simply and with the full weight of its potential horror:

Can it be true that any president really has such powers under our Constitution? If the answer is "yes" then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited?

Then Gore asked, why have "our normal safeguards" so far failed to stop this power grab? His analysis is brilliant and spares no one. He blames the administration's cult of secrecy, of lying, of withholding information even from Congress, and for manipulating the media. Others have complained of this much, in piecemeal, but Gore adds more layers to the cake: he accuses the Bushites of suppressing dissent from within the government, and from manipulating the judiciary. "The common denominator seems to be based on an instinct to intimidate and control. "

He attacks Bush's Supreme Court appointees as tailor made to uphold excessive executive power, and his lower court appointments do. Then Gore went after Congress---as a weakened institution, and without even saying the word "corrupt," as corrupted by cynical one party rule (with congressional Republicans tied more tightly to the administration's men in control of the party and their funds than ever before) and their co-equal relationship with lobbyists and other money bagmen.

But the beauty of Gore's political position as a semi-outsider is that he can take Democrats to task as well for not fighting harder, for not objecting more loudly to the abuses that a few of them knew were going on for years. "I call upon Democratic and Republican members of Congress today to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution. Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of government you're supposed to be. "

He called upon the other branch of government, the sovereign people, to step up. He railed against the noxious effect of television and the political dialogue of the expensive 30 second spot, and he recognized the Internet as the last hope for democratic dialogue.

He said the administration had tried to control that dialogue by spreading fear. This was another high point, in that he said what some of us have been saying for a long time, but he put it in terms that should open the eyes of all Americans. Gore acknowledged the danger of another terrorist attack. But he pointed out that our civil liberties were established by men who faced hanging if they had failed to win the Revolutionary War. Then he asked the questions, made the point, that we've been waiting for someone to say:

Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of missiles poised to be launched against us and annihilate our country at a moment's notice? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march-when our fathers fought and won two World Wars simultaneously? [Here I think he meant to say "consecutively."]

It is simply an insult to those who came before us and sacrificed so much on our behalf to imply that we have more to be fearful of than they. Yet they faithfully protected our freedoms and now it is up to us to do the same.

We have a duty as Americans to defend our citizens' right not only to life but also to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is therefore vital in our current circumstances that immediate steps be taken to safeguard our Constitution against the present danger posed by the intrusive overreaching on the part of the Executive Branch and the President's apparent belief that he need not live under the rule of law.

Gore then outlined his action proposals: a special counsel "to pursue the criminal issues raised by warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the President." He called for stronger "whistle-blower" laws to protect those in the federal government, for both houses of Congress to conduct their own real investigations (as the Senate shows more promise of doing, now that the Alito hearings are over), for Congress to refuse to pass the Patriot Act until stronger safeguards for basic rights are included, and---this is pretty interesting--for telecommunications companies to stop cooperating with illegal electronic spying. Gore concluded with an MLK quote---which now is the Dreaming Up Daily Quote for today.

There was little rhetorical flash in the speech, the quotes were substantive rather than soaring, but there wasn't a dull moment. Gore's delivery was perfect, nuanced and yet clearly effective in the room, and equally so through the TV camera, a rare combination. It was appropriately serious in tone, and as it turns out, Al Gore was the right person to deliver it.

History turns on such moments, though of course it often takes more than one. The Republican noisemakers are doubtless busy burning up the airwaves currently owned by the corporate beneficiares of their way of running politics. We'll see if chastened congressional Democrats embrace it as they should. Then we'll see if the country is listening. Or if they're still willing to watch the Big Smirk take it all down.