Americans are called to a hearty patriotism fired by compassion, not a heartless patriotism forged in anger. The country's quest for security must be dedicated to peace, not blinded by might.
To me, President Bush's finest moments in the days immediately following the terrorist attacks were not only when he grieved the victims, consoled their families, praised the heroes and heroines, and pledged to make America safe, but also when he called for calm and preached civic understanding and tolerance. Several national surveys taken over the last year have found that mass attitudes toward Muslims in America have become more, not less, understanding and tolerant. This is encouraging, but it is no reason for complacency surrounding efforts to promote inter-faith dialogues and combat social prejudices.
Sept. 11 also taught us once again that our nation's "government bureaucrats" include police and firefighters, disease control specialists, emergency management agents and countless other selfless public servants. This lesson was learned, but forgotten, some years ago in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. May we never again backslide into bureaucrat-bashing.
Yet a third Sept. 11 civic lesson concerns the country's civil sector. Churches near Ground Zero, local and national charities, grassroots groups and myriad other non-profit organizations have rallied lovingly and well to supply food, shelter, counseling, victims' assistance funds and more when and where needed.
Still, we should worry about the anemic public debate over Washington's crazy-quilt policy responses to Sept. 11. Exhibit A is the virtual non-debate over whether or how best to establish a new department of homeland defense or homeland security. Only one national leader, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, has consistently addressed this issue in a forthright, statesman-like way, solicited information and perspectives from diverse sources, and briefed the media accordingly. Media coverage of the issue, even in the leading newspapers, has been spotty and superficial at best.
Several proposals are now on the table. They differ somewhat, but each would require the largest reorganization of the federal government since Harry Truman was president. The Bush plan would consolidate 22 federal agencies into one umbrella cabinet-level bureaucracy with nearly 170,000 employees (third behind Defense and Veterans Affairs) and a total of about $38 billion a year in budgets (fourth behind Defense, Health and Human Services, and Education). The administration insists that the department's secretary have broad exemptions from standard civil service personnel protections governing hiring, firing, assignments, pay scales, transfers, and promotions. Sen. Lieberman's rival proposal would streamline more agency operations while leaving civil service protections intact.
We should also worry about the administration's reluctance, until recently, to answer legitimate questions and debate reasonable doubts raised by its stated preference for unprecedented military policies favoring pre-emptive strikes against potential aggressors. Recent opinion polls suggest that most Americans remain uncertain about what, if any, anti-terror military actions should be taken beyond what has already been done in Afghanistan. They should be, and they should want to know more before the commander-in-chief, with or without congressional approval or allied support, commits the country to what by the president's own account would inevitably be a highly costly and prolonged military campaign.
Above all, we should ask how America's representative democracy will fare if, as the administration's homeland security blueprint states, and as most leaders in both parties now seem to agree, "vulnerability to terrorism of catastrophic proportions" is a "permanent condition."
Wisely or not, America's Founding Fathers rejected ancient precedents that counseled writing emergency governance procedures into the U.S. Constitution. Several otherwise great presidents, including Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, took actions during wartime that were later declared unconstitutional. Will this history repeat itself? What is the right constitutional balance between civil rights and civil liberties interests, on the one side, and new national defense and homeland security priorities, on the other?
In a March 17, 2002, joint op-ed in The Washington Post, former House speakers Tom Foley and Newt Gingrich warned that a future attack could shut down the Congress. The "expeditious path," they advised, would be to permit each member "to pre-designate an interim successor who could serve for the period between a catastrophic loss of House members and the election of successors."
Can America defend itself without taking every seemingly "expeditious path," either at home or abroad? By this time next year, we may well know the answer. Pray we like it.
John DiIulio is a professor of political science, director of the Fox Leadership Program and founding director of the Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society. He served as the first director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives in 2001.
