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Getting a Bit Crazy Myself

By Stephan Thernstrom
Posted Friday, Dec. 18, 1998, at 11:30 AM ET

Dear Abby,

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The wheel of history is spinning so fast that we're all getting dizzy. The headline news defies comment. By now, even I am starting down the road of conspiracy theories--beginning to get a little crazy. What's next? An "Arab terrorist" bomb that goes off in the Republican cloakroom, conveniently canceling a couple of dozen pro-impeachment votes?

Harping back to my preoccupation with the uses of history in the present argument, how can Democrats say with a straight face that impeachment cannot possibly be debated while our "young men and women are in harm's way"? A lot more of them were far more vulnerable to harm in the jungles of Vietnam in the year plus that was properly devoted to exposing the crimes of Richard Nixon. Now Clinton isn't Nixon, I understand. Nevertheless ... And all this solicitude about not undermining the commander-in-chief from a party that overwhelmingly opposed Desert Storm. Why no objections to the bombing assault from John Conyers, who had been campaigning to lift the sanctions against Iraq--and indeed "forgive" Saddam? "A president that is seeking forgiveness ought to give some also," the congressman said in speaking to a group of Arab-Americans on Dec. 1. Not exactly what the president is now doing.

Historian Howard Zinn and a small band of the faithful were out on Boston Common yesterday chanting "one, two, three, four, we don't want your racist war." Zinn said that Clinton was "visiting death and destruction not on Saddam Hussein, but on the Iraqi people." Good for Zinn; at least he has stuck to long-held principles.

On the question of Bill Lann Lee: You and I don't like the race-based public policies that the Department of Justice continues to uphold. But an optimist would note the advantages of a system that is impervious to radical change, whether by legislation, executive orders, or rulings by the Supreme Court. The framers of the Constitution feared concentrated power and created a central government with features--federalism, separation of powers, and checks and balances--that made it extremely difficult to bring about dramatic change of any kind. If the next assistant attorney general for civil rights believes in a color-blind Constitution but the next Congress and a majority of the Supreme Court do not, would you not think that it is fortunate that he or she had the autonomy that Patrick and Lee have had?

What's troubling about Lee is that he was never confirmed by the Senate. Acting appointees are supposed to be time-limited. What is the point of requiring Senate confirmation if it can be ignored by making acting appointments that are de facto permanent?

Steve