Maxwell School of Syracuse University

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We’re in a daily state of re-evaluation about the wisdom of our political, legal, and military response to those shattering and horrific events of 9/11. The essential question remains in this country: Have we made ourselves a larger target or a smaller target? The examination and the dialogue that go with that are not always perfect. There are outrageous and destructive claims across the full spectrum of public opinion, from left to right and back again. The fact is that we should encourage that robust debate, because it is a statement that the cherished traditions of democracy and participatory democracy remain—shaken, but not shattered, by the assaults of suicide bombers or homegrown demagogues.

I believe, in this democracy, now more than ever, the problem is not in the questions but in the answers. The vigorous exchange of ideas is such a critical component of determining our once and future course, it is incumbent upon all of us—not just in the academy or in gatherings like this, but in our everyday lives—to resist, individually and collectively, the temptations to silence criticism or honest questions from whichever part of the ideological spectrum they may originate. If we are to be the defenders of freedom abroad, we must also be the stewards of it conspicuously at home. . . .

I also believe that simultaneously we have to begin to deal in this country with a political system that is, if not broken, at least cracked. The fault lines have created an unsettling landscape. After more than 40 years of reporting on the American political process up close—from the Republican precincts of Omaha, Nebraska, to the Dixiecrat sensibilities of the South, to the liberal activism of California and conservative instincts of the Rocky Mountain west—from the State House to the White House, as Jesse Jackson might say—I am persuaded that we have become “one country, two nations” as a result of the determination of both parties to divide and conquer. . . .

This is a schematic forestructural weakness, at a time when there is need of an enlonging, forward-finding common strength on common ground, however uneven that common ground may be. I have no illusion that American politics should resemble Syracuse students on spring break, when everyone loves everyone else. But must it be scorched earth, all day everyday?

In a country that is so evenly divided, when a handful of precincts and a cupful of swing states can determine the outcome of a presidential election, I know that is not just the instinct, but in fact the battle plan for both parties. Couple that with the tools of modern campaigning—ruthlessly efficient mass marketing polls; surveys that map the electorate down to the fungus in their suburban yards; media campaigns and buys that target every paranoia, however real or imaged—and you’ve reduced American politics to kill and kill again.

The center has been eliminated. If you are a Republican, you must be anti-abortion. You must be pro-gun. You must be anti-tax. If you’re a Democrat, you must be pro-choice. You must be anti-gun. And you must be anti-wealthy. That drives the operating factions of the parties to the extremes, and leaves out the middle: people who may find themselves in agreement with some of the mantras of the Republican party, but also with some of the fixed positions of the Democratic party.

Party machinery as it is now constructed is reinforced by the sinews of another hard fact of modern political life, and that is the single-interest organization: campaign fund raising, mass mailings of sophisticated propaganda, well-organized telephone networks of like-minded activists. Single-interest citizens have become a power in American politics well beyond their numbers alone.

I give you no other case than Terry Schiavo. What we have been through in America in the last two weeks is a travesty, given the issues that really are profoundly affecting this country. That there could be emergency sessions of Congress, that the President would fly back from Texas in the middle of the night to sign [legislation], that the rule of the law, exercised not just once but at every level of the American judiciary, again and again and again, and the final decision going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, was finally, finally settled. The most powerful man in the House of Representatives said “there will be hell to pay for these judges.”

What kind of dialogue does that encourage in America? What kind of regard does that instill for the separation of powers and a place of constitutional law? Also what does that say to people who may want to get into the arena? Who may want to subject themselves to the kind of examination they now have to undergo before they can stand for office?

These special interests are not confined to one side of the ideological spectrum or the other. They are members of the NRA, but they are also members of the teachers’ union. They are manufacturers and they are also consumer activists. They’re physicians and they are trial lawyers. In doing what they do, they have reduced the American electorate to a body that is less than the sum of its parts. They encourage, wittingly or unwittingly, a population of public servants too willing to develop myopia, in which their vision is confined to the narrow interests that helped elect them. Their ammo and their impact on the commonwealth have been well-documented in the mass media. Their money, their momentum, and their focus is so considerable that mere exposition is not enough for a course correction.

It is a hard and complex task to reorder American politics, but it is also exciting because it is an unparallelled opportunity, I believe, to define our time and leave a lasting legacy and to concentrate on the larger, overarching issues that are before us in this unresolved war against terror, the new definition of national security, and one of the continuing concerns that I have—not just in the Middle East, but in this country as well—[which are], for absence of a better phrase, unresolved expectations of everyone about a tidy ending to all of this.

Related: The Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism