Part of complete coverage from
The NSA spies and Democrats look away
updated 10:40 AM EDT, Mon July 8, 2013
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Julian Zelizer: There's less emphasis on NSA spying than Snowden's whereabouts
- Zelizer: Democrats silent on intrusion of the surveillance program; some defend it
- Zelizer: Partisans are harder on the opposition, but this can be dangerous
- He says liberal critics of NSA will probably remain silent as excesses in security grow
Editor's note: Julian Zelizer
is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.
He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and "Governing America."
(CNN) -- During the weeks of debates triggered by Edward Snowden and his release of information about a classified National Security Agency spying program, the story has moved further and further from the actual surveillance and centered instead on the international cat-and-mouse game to find him.
What has been remarkable
is how Democrats have expressed little opposition to the surveillance
program. Many Democrats have simply remained silent as these revelations
have emerged while others, like California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, have openly defended the program.
Julian Zelizer
President Barack Obama,
while initially acknowledging the need for a proper balance between
civil liberties and national security, has increasingly focused on
defending the government and targeting Snowden. When former President
George W. Bush offered comments that echoed much of the president's
sentiment, some of his supporters couldn't help but cringe as these two
one-time adversaries came together on the issue of counterterrorism.
The loss of a Democratic
opposition to the framework of counterterrorism policy has been one of
the most notable aspects of Obama's term in office. Although Obama ran
in 2008 as a candidate who would change the way the government conducted
its business and restore a better balance with civil liberties, it has
not turned out that way. Obama has barely dismantled any of the Bush
programs, and sometimes even expanded their reach in the use of drone
strikes and the targeting of American citizens. He has also undertaken
an aggressive posture toward those who criticize his program.
Equally notable has been
how silent many liberals, who once railed against Bush for similar
activities, have become in recent years. Whenever Obama has encountered
conservative pushback for minor efforts to change national security
operations, there has been little pressure from liberals for him to move
in a different direction. If there was any moment when liberals might
use a scandal to pressure the president into reforms, this was it. But
there is little evidence that this will happen.
Where is the outrage? Where has the Democratic opposition gone? Part of the story simply has to do with political hypocrisy.
Whether or not we like
it, partisans tend to be harder on the opposition party than their own.
This was clear when Republican opponents of a strong national security
system, who gave then-President Bill Clinton trouble when he went after
home-bred white extremists in 1995 and 1996 in the wake of the Oklahoma
City bombing, remained silent when President Bush took the same steps
against terrorism after 9/11 -- such as in the use of roving wiretaps on
cell phones.
Snowden adrift in Moscow airport
Snowden remains a headache for Putin
What will Edward Snowden do next?
Democrats have been
reluctant to weaken a president who has moved forward on domestic
policies they care about by giving him trouble on an issue where their
party has traditionally been vulnerable.
The silence on national
security is also a product of presidential leadership. One of the
functions of a president, as party leader, is to send strong signals
about what the party should focus on. When Obama backed away from
closing Guantanamo early in his first term, and has been reluctant to do
much about the issues of interrogation and aggressive use of American
power, he made it much harder for Democratic liberals to do this on
their own. By embracing so much of President Bush's national security
program, Obama has forged a bipartisan consensus that further
marginalized the left and made it harder for them to gain much traction.
Finally, liberals have
been split on this issue. The intense animosity toward Bush created the
appearance of unanimity, but, in reality, divisions loomed all along.
Now that Democrats have been able to debate national security with their
own president in the White House, it is clear that many liberals, like
Feinstein, believe the government needs to take these steps. Efforts to
attack the United States, ranging from the failed plot to bomb the New
York City subways to the Boston bombings, have offered a reminder of the
chronic risks the nation faces.
"What do you think would
happen if Najibulla Zazi was successful?" Feinstein asked, referring to
his effort to bomb a New York subway. "There would be unbridled
criticism. Didn't we learn anything? Can't we protect our homeland?"
But Democrats must also
remember that too much consensus can lead to bad decisions. During the
late 1940s and early 1950s, many liberal Democrats feared being seen as
"soft on communism," and allowed reckless and random attacks on
Americans accused of allying with the Soviets. This dangerously eroded
civil liberties and destroyed many lives.
During the early 1960s,
Lyndon Johnson's refusal to listen to the many critics of his Vietnam
policies led him deeper and deeper into the quagmire of that war. And
during the late 1990s and early 2000s, Democratic fears of being seen as
weak on defense led to a ratcheting up of concern about Iraq that
helped give Bush the political space he needed to send American troops
off to war.
It is possible that
further revelations supplied by Snowden to The Guardian newspaper's
Glenn Greenwald will energize liberal opponents of national security
policy and build pressure in Congress for serious investigations and
possible reform. But the odds are slim.
It's more likely that
most liberal critics of the administration will remain silent and our
equivalent of what President Dwight Eisenhower in 1961 called the
military-industrial complex -- the intricate web connecting defense
contractors, the military, members of Congress and the executive branch
-- will continue to grow.
No comments:
Post a Comment