Bill of Wrongs The Bush Administration's Assault on Our Fundamental Rights-and How to Fight Back

Chapter 1 ONE Independence Day Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. First Amendment to the United States Constitution People should watch what they say. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, October 2001 We were wearing T-shirts, exercising our free-speech rights in the public square. And we were arrested? If you cede this, there's nothing left.University of Houston law student Jeff Rank, February 2007 It's July 4, 2004. The temperature is in the mid-nineties, the humidity is high, the crowd on the West Virginia capitol grounds numbers three, or four, or six thousand, depending on the media source. George W. Bush is in a tight race with John Kerry. And a growing number of voters have already gone south on Bush's war in Iraq. After Representative Shelley Moore Capito introduces the president, he thanks her for serving as his state campaign chair. Then takes ten more minutes to make it through the acknowledgments and howdies in his twenty-five-minute speech. He thanks the Boy Scouts. And the Girl Scouts. He thanks Charleston's Republican mayor, Danny Jones. He thanks country and western singer Aaron Tippin. He thanks the minister of Bible Center megachurch, whose service he missed that morning because of a mechanical problem on Air Force One. He thanks no one in particular for the "coal found in West Virginia." He thanks the Almighty a few times. He even thanks the West Virginia Coal Association president, whom he describes as "my friend," for getting the coal out of the ground and into the nation's power plants. He doesn't thank the coal miners, but the president is doubled over with gratitude. The party dignitaries, Bush's state campaign chair, the planned stop at a big-box evangelical church, the Bush T-shirts worn by enthusiastic supporters, all suggest that the Fourth of July visit to Charleston is a campaign event. It's not. It's an official visit of the president of the United States, with taxpayers picking up the tab for Air Force One, the president's security detail, and the weeks of work by the White House Advance Team. But political strategist Karl Rove is in charge, the Iraq war in question, and John Kerry slightly ahead in national polls. So the president delivers his well-rehearsed keep-fear-alive campaign stem-winder, written to drive home the message he hopes will close the deal in November:The terrorists who were plotting to attack us again are hard on the run in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our immediate task in battlefronts like Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere is to capture or kill the terrorists. That's our immediate task. We made a decision. You see. We will engage these enemies in these countries around the world so we do not have to face them at home. (Applause) After the attacks of September the eleventh, 2001, the nation resolved to fight terrorists where they dwell. (Applause) You can't talk sense to them. You can't negotiate with them. You cannot hope for the best with these people. We must be relentless and determined to do our duty. (Applause) But it's the Fourth of July, and just as a good country and western song requires the mention of Mama, trains, trucks, prison, and gettin' drunk, there are certain de rigueur requirements of a good Fourth of July speech. Bush touched on most of them: the Founders, George Washington ("I call him George W."), God, the Troops, abstractions like Democracy and Freedom. On this Fourth of JuIvins, Molly is the author of 'Bill of Wrongs The Bush Administration's Assault on Our Fundamental Rights-and How to Fight Back', published 2007 under ISBN 9781400062867 and ISBN 1400062861.