| A Coming Purge |
1 September 2003
|
GOP Suspicious of Patriot Act
Poor John Ashcroft, America's Attorney-General. Here is the man who must change the
laws
of the federal government to fight the terrorists under every bed, and he is meeting resistance from civil rights whiners. Not only is a fuss coming from the usual Comsymp Democrats, pinko liberals and other citizens of dubious patriotism, but it is also appearing inside the Republican Party. Perhaps the Attorney-General should consider a Night of Long Knives to get rid of people like Idaho's Congressman C.L. "Butch" Otter.
Congressman Otter is one of three House Republicans who voted against the original Patriot Act in Breach of the Constitution, but he is not alone in worrying about the New Internal Order. At the state level in Idaho, a very white and quite conservative state, a great many in the GOP are upset. A verbatim MSNBC.com report sums it up: "Ashcroft wants more power,” said state Rep. Charles Eberle (R-Post Falls), who has drafted a resolution critical of the Patriot Act. “What a lot of us in Idaho are saying is, ‘Let’s not get rid of the
checks
and balances.’ . . . People out here in the West are used to taking care of themselves. We don’t like the government intruding on our constitutional rights.”
The Republican Party is an uncomfortable broad tent of interests: Wall Street, religious fundamentalists, militarists and libertarians. Moreover, its western and southern wings are much more populist than they are elitist (especially in the west where most of the elites are hardly a generation old). And so we find that the "by -any-means-necessary" part of the national security apparatus represented by Mr. Ashcroft (and underpinned by his own "thou-shalt-not-dance" fundamentalist Christianity, is bumping up against the "don't-tread-on-me" crowd.
It won't split the Republican Party, but this divide will keep Mr. Ashcroft from getting his way, at least this time around. In the highly unlikely event there is another major terrorist attack in the US launched by anyone other than an American citizen (e.g., Tim McVeigh), Mr. Ashcroft will be able to get anything he wants rubber-stamped. Until then, it looks like his plans are doomed -- good thing, too.
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