Time for a New Patriotism?

By Jonathan Alter, Newsweek

Britney Spears, best known recently for a lip lock with Madonna, is hardly an authority on the political ramifications of September 11. But Spears has a bankable feel for the popular pulse, and her comments last week reflected a good chunk of public opinion on the subject of patriotism: "I think we should just trust the president in every decision he makes," she told CNN, "and we should just support that, and be faithful in what happens."

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, most of them Republicans, define themselves politically and define others patriotically by adherence to that simple Spears standard. The Bush White House will do everything it can to identify those voters; play to their sometimes sublimated emotions of fidelity and fear, and turn the first Tuesday in November 2004 into a referendum on the second Tuesday in September 2001. Stay Proud. Stay Safe. Vote Bush.

But now a hard-nosed Democratic critique has emerged, reflected in Howard Dean's surprising success and Al Franken's runaway best seller that documents lies told by Bush and other conservatives. This view is a twist on Bush's taunt to the terrorists, "Bring 'em on." These Democrats are essentially saying to him: "Go ahead, make ads wearing that flight suit on the aircraft carrier; visit Ground Zero with a bullhorn during the GOP convention next year in New York; try to 'Dukakisize' the Democratic nominee as an unpatriotic weenie. This time, it ain't working." And, by the way, "We told you so on the failure of your go-it-alone arrogance abroad and your job-killing, feed-the-rich economy at home."

Between blind loyalty and blind defiance sit most Americans, still rubbing their eyes in amazement at how much has changed in only two years. In the wrenching aftermath of September 11, the American flag became a security blanket to warm a wounded nation: Stars and Stripes sprouted in even the most left-wing lapels and the French daily, Le Monde, ran a banner headline: WE ARE ALL AMERICANS NOW.

DISSENT IN THE DEEP FREEZE
For a time, the president struck just the right tone in his speeches and launched just the right policy in Afghanistan, where he promised that "the Evil One"--Osama bin Laden--would be brought to justice, though the public patiently understood this might take a few weeks or months. Because the United States was blameless on 9/11--and certainly did not "have it coming," as a few ignorant left-wingers claimed--dissent went into the deep freeze, subordinated to a need to pull together and take comfort in the greatness of America.

But soon patriotism moved from a comfort to a cudgel. An impulse that had briefly united now often divided, as it did in the past. At the turn of the last century, Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain), who was deemed a traitor for opposing U.S. policy in the Philippines, derided what he called "monarchical patriotism." The old royal idea that "the king can do no wrong," Clemens reported with disgust, had been changed to "our country, right or wrong."

Liberals are at a natural disadvantage on this terrain, which is why many Democrats are leery of any presidential candidate who didn't serve in the military. There's a stubborn double standard at work. The same conservatives who attacked President Clinton's policy after war began in Kosovo in 1999 felt it was traitorously out of bounds for Sen. Tom Daschle to offer mild criticism of Bush during the Iraq war.

FLIP-FLOPS AND SMEARS
Nowadays, military service is no guaranteed defense against this bully patriotism, even when it's wielded by politicians and blowhard pundits who themselves avoided Vietnam. In 2002, after blocking the creation of a Department of Homeland Security for months, Republicans flip-flopped, then smeared Sen. Max Cleland as unpatriotic for a position they themselves had just recently taken. Cleland, a Vietnam veteran and triple-amputee, lost his re-election bid in Georgia to Saxby Chambliss, who skipped service. Was this (and Bush's tarring of Vietnam POW John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary) a preview of 2004? Considering the sniping from White House officials that critics who preferred embargoing Iraq to invading it were "pacifists," the answer is almost certainly yes.

Would another terrorist attack on American soil let Bush play patriot politics--or expose him to blame? It depends on the timing. If the attack comes in the next year, it's more likely to hurt him; if it comes just before the election, it would likely lead voters to rally around. And the circumstances are critical. If it's bioterrorism, the budget cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and failure to issue standards (much less training) for hospitals could prove harmful politically. If it's a lapse at an airport, where security has been beefed up, the damage wouldn't be as great.

Meanwhile, a new political climate has settled on Washington, which moved from investigating too much in the 1980s and 1990s to probing too little today (in part because the executive and congressional branches are controlled by the same party). The normal accountability imposed after every modern fiasco or disaster--from Pearl Harbor to the Bay of Pigs to the Challenger explosion--has been delayed at every turn by the White House, to the consternation of many families of the 9/11 victims, who believe that finding the truth is patriotic.

EXAGGERATING THE THREAT?
Now the Age of Incuriosity has extended beyond 9/11 to virtually anything that might prove embarrassing. Britain this month is riveted by testimony before the Hutton Commission showing that British intelligence officers repeatedly warned 10 Downing Street against exaggerating the threat posed by Iraq. No such hearings are taking place in Washington, nor are there any on wishful-thinking senior officials who got snookered by Iraqi exiles peddling misinformation--bogus analysis the president chose to believe over the warnings of his own CIA.

This raises anew the question of what modern patriotism means. Was it patriotic for the White House to instruct the EPA to put out a press release after 9/11 saying the air around Ground Zero was safe when there was no evidence for it? Was it patriotic to invade Iraq when there was no sign of an imminent threat and plenty to suggest that it would seriously detract from the war on Al Qaeda? Was it patriotic for the White House to allow American companies that reap millions in contracts with the Department of Homeland Security to incorporate in Bermuda in order to avoid paying taxes?

Perhaps most important, is it patriotic to define patriotism the old-fashioned way--as a kind of narrow nationalism? That jingoistic definition is carrying a price for the president, who must now go on bended knee to allies he so recently scorned. When you're spending $1 billion a week in Iraq, dissing our friends, as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have done consistently, seems to be a tad ... counter-productive. Those "freedom fries" in the House cafeteria are burning us now; those gibes that John Kerry "looks French" don't look so clever.

Maybe all that liberal talk about involving the United Nations wasn't so squishy and unpatriotic after all, if one believes it's now a good idea to lose less in blood and treasure in Iraq. Maybe the true patriotism--the best nationalism--is enlightened internationalism, just as presidents from both parties have believed since World War II. Maybe Britney Spears and millions of Mark Twain's other "monarchical patriots" can learn to trust in that, too. Or at least offer some respect to those who disagree.

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

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