One of the nice things about the recent Christmas holiday was the way things worked out for the American Civil Liberties Union.
This organization has for years been doing its best to remove religion from the public square, but 2005 was different. Conservative groups were organized to oppose any new ACLU initiatives, so if there is a war on Christmas, last year the Grinch and his ACLU friends lost.
But as the New Year dawns, there is a trio of pending political and judicial issues that will keep the spotlight on the ACLU and likely furnish fresh proof that this organization is, more often than not, an avowed enemy of the nation’s values and traditions.
The three are the renewal of the Patriot Act, the confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court and the controversy surrounding the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program on some international communications.
Not surprisingly, the ACLU has taken questionable positions on all three matters.
The organization rejoiced when Congress failed to renew important provisions of the Patriot Act and instead extended the act’s provisions by just one month. The ACLU has declared itself to be on the side of “common-sense reforms,” a phrase that is subject to multiple interpretations. In fact, the ACLU statement on the act doesn’t deal in specifics but instead backs measures that will keep America “safe and free.” No one could oppose that, but it is a safe bet that when and if Congress reauthorizes the key provisions of the act, the ACLU will still not like it.
The organization’s position on the Alito nomination is yet to be fully defined, but it is already obvious that the ACLU will do nothing to advance the confirmation. Formal opposition to the nomination would require a majority vote of the 83-member board of directors, but short of that the organization can do a great deal to muddy the waters and increase opposition.
It has released a 70-page report on Alito’s judicial record, much of it clearly intended to raise doubts about his nomination. The report emphasizes, for example, that Alito is an avowed conservative and that this fact is made more ominous because he would be a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a justice the ACLU seems to like.
Most of the report is remarkably unhelpful in that it summarizes Alito’s opinions in ways that imply a concern without saying what it is.
For example, it lists a unanimous decision written by Alito denying a professor’s First Amendment claim that the university had no right to dictate what materials might be used in class. The court said professors have no First Amendment rights to control the curriculum. Most Americans would find that decision to be correct. It is not clear whether the ACLU agrees. What is clear is that the ACLU doesn’t much like Alito precisely because he is conservative.
In recent fights over judicial nominees, facts have been less important than innuendo. That’s why the ACLU is already playing the innuendo game and suggesting that Alito doesn’t much care about civil liberties. The organization plainly hopes that if it can spread that claim widely enough, it won’t much matter what the judge’s actual record is.
Finally, on the subject of the NSA’s eavesdropping program, the ACLU has completely lost all pretense of objectivity. A spokesman for the group announced, “President Bush broke the law and lied to the American people when he unilaterally authorized secret wiretaps of U.S. citizens. But rather than focus on this constitutional crisis, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is cracking down on critics of his friend and boss. Our nation is strengthened, not weakened, by those whistleblowers who are courageous enough to speak out on violations of the law.”
That comment is, from start to finish, an outrageous and baseless summary of events. The ACLU doesn’t know if the law was broken or if the president lied or if “citizens” were targeted or if Gonzales is properly doing his job. It assuredly doesn’t know if the information was leaked by a “courageous whistleblower” or by someone determined to undermine nation’s security.
All the ACLU statement does is illustrate once again that the organization is often an enemy of the truth and the American people. No wonder so many ask, why do they call it the American Civil Liberties Union?
Al Knight of Fairplay (alknight@mindspring.com) is a former member of The Post’s editorial-page staff. His columns appear on Wednesday.
