If there’s one thing we should have learned from 2004, we should learn this: Proving that the other guy is wrong isn’t enough!

It’s clearly wrong and illegal for Bush to authorize domestic surveillance as he did. But that’s not enough! He protested it was a necessary part of his ‘war on terror’. We protested he was violating civil rights. If we permit the argument to be stated as a choice between civil liberties and surviving terror (as we appear to be at this point); guess what? We loose! Dick Chaney has already argued that, if Bush had these powers in 2001, 9/11 could have been avoided. He’s absolutely wrong; but absolutely effective.

If the FISA law of the ‘70’s are ineffective for use against the terror and technology of the 21st century; we need our party’s leadership to address BOTH civil rights and the war on terror. We must take the lead on these matters and not get trapped into the either/or debate.

My true concern is that the above is merely symbolic of the rift within our party between educated liberals and working class whites. The latter were the heart and soul of our party until they were eschewed as “Joe Six-Packs” or “Archie Bunkers” in the culture wars. Bill Clinton reclaimed them briefly when he appealed to those who “work hard and play by the rules.”

Supreme Court nominee Alito is a prime example. By every measurable economic and social standard he should have been a Democrat. He didn’t run away. He was banished. The son of working class immigrants in Trenton, N.J. who worked hard and played by the rules, he went to college with privileged liberals of the ‘60’s who didn’t work and had no rules. To a great extent it is these who are now seen as the spokesmen of our party. The residue of their earlier attitudes still alienates Middle America. Cops are thugs! Working class whites are bigots! The Military are war criminals! Their adolescent echoes still reverberate.

Like Bill before her, Hillary seems to have sensed this alienation. If not her candidacy, perhaps we can acquire some of her sense.

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