Democracy's chance to spring eternal
WITH LAST WEEK'S ruling by a US Appeals Court that the military cannot hold a legal resident without charge and a move by the Office of Special Counsel to investigate the politicization of federal agencies, bit by bit, the fear that has gripped America the past six years appears to be lifting. As candidates on both sides of the aisle debate how to move the nation forward and restore American prestige, signs of a new spirit are appearing.
Call it an "American Spring." After a long winter of fear, the return of debate in Congress and the prospect of a new administration have begun to stir the roots of democracy. It is still too soon to tell if spring will truly blossom or whether winter will return. But it is a perfect moment to reflect on the state of American freedom.
America began the 21st century with freshly burnished democratic credentials from its support of democratic transitions abroad and the world's strongest democracy at home. No country had a stronger system of checks and balances. In no country was freedom so central to individual identity or civic institutions so deeply rooted. Wealth was comparatively widely distributed and a belief in fairness ruled. Yet each of these assets has been taxed.
With the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as its excuse and using fear as its political currency, a clique around President Bush appropriated an unprecedented level of control over the levers of power.
This group launched the Iraq war, began warrant less domestic surveillance, depreciated Congress with the theory of the unitary executive, embraced torture, weakened habeas corpus, and politicized, wherever possible, implements of power. Tax policies widened the gap between rich and poor while the renunciation of human rights and the Geneva Convention eroded America's reputation as a beacon of freedom.
To hide many of these actions, the administration employed secrecy and fear. This moment of reprieve is a good one to survey just how American democracy held up.
So strong is the American tradition of justice that the system of kangaroo tribunals devised by former Justice Department official John Yoo, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and others has yet to really function. The United States, with luck, may re-embrace the Geneva Convention. The independence of a few key news outlets saved America from the fate of countries such as Russia, where the consolidation of the press has given President Vladimir Putin free reign to stifle democracy. A tough, independent prosecutor took on the Bush administration. And the American people shifted the balance of power in Congress.
But consider also what didn't work.
The media was slow to report what it knew. CBS, for example, held on to the Abu Ghraib story for weeks. The 109th Congress acquiesced in its own demotion. And in a manner reminiscent of the Milgram experiments at Yale in which ordinary people turned up the voltage on prisoners when permitted, a shocking number of people in high places revealed a predilection for torture.
Current thaw notwithstanding, the work of restoring rights lost to the last seven years has yet to begin.
Habeas corpus remains weakened. Torture and "extraordinary rendition" of prisoners is still practiced. Domestic surveillance continues. Secret prisons survive. US attorneys nominated by Karl Rove are, it appears, combing voter rolls for Democrats to purge between now and November 2008.
Nor will these issues disappear on Jan. 20, 2008. Despite worldwide condemnation of the detention center at Guantanamo, for example, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants to double its size. Indeed no candidate of either party has made a full commitment to an agenda of freedom. Enemies of liberty could easily seize on another terrorist event to further roll back liberties.
The current American Spring provides an opportunity for Congress to reverse the mistakes of the past seven years and for the administration to salvage its place in history.
The recent vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee to report out a bill to restore habeas corpus and investigations by that committee and Special Counsel Scott Bloch of the politicization of federal agencies are steps in this direction. But they are only the beginning.
Leaders of both political parties should ask themselves: when historians look back at today, do you want them to see this spring as blossoming with the restoral of American freedom or as an opportunity lost?
Michael Moynihan, an adviser in the Clinton administration, is writing a book about the history of freedom. 
