Democrats and some Republicans are dismayed and confused over President George Bush’s refusal to create a powerful intelligence czar in response to the 9/11 Commission’s report. Democrats cited concern that some civil libertarians might support Bush on this issue.

“George Bush is not keeping up his end of the game,” said Representative Henry Waxman, (D-Los Angeles). Democrat presidential nominee John Kerry (D-MA) agreed, calling on Bush to “give the intelligence czar full power so that we can criticize the post.”

Both Republicans and Democrats agree that by all the unwritten laws of politics it is always the Republican who attacks privacy, and with the wiliness of their kind they do it just after a terrorist attack, at which time they know the courage of the Democrat to be at its lowest ebb. The Democrats have in the meantime made a rude compromise on the remains of the living constitution, giving in on key points, for it is destruction to be too supportive of privacy. There they await the onslaught, the freshmen reading the bill of rights and working on rhetoric, but the incumbents sleeping tranquilly until just before the vote. Through the long debate the Republicans wriggle, snake-like, among their arguments without stirring a fact. The nation closes behind them, as silently as an accident into which a lawyer has dived. Not a sound is to be heard, save when they give vent to a wonderful imitation of Orwell’s cry of the sheep. The cry is answered by Republicans; and some of them do it even better than the sheep, who are not very good at it. So the debates wear on, and the long suspense is horribly trying to the Democrat who has to live through it for the first time; but to the trained hand those ghastly arguments and still ghastlier silences are but an intimation of how their rights are dying.

“This usual procedure is so well known to Bush that in disregarding it he cannot be excused on the plea of ignorance,” said Waxman.

Senator Kerry vehemently disagreed with Bush’s response to the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations. “Bush is completely wrong,” said Kerry. “Of course, we’re used to that now. When he said terror is... freedom is... what was it Mr. Bush said again?”

“Freedom is terror,” said one of his aides.

“That is completely wrong,” continued Kerry. “The full truth is that terror is freedom. That’s why the 9/11 Commission recommended a fully-empowered intelligence czar. It recognizes what I said during my nomination speech: America does not have to be free to be strong.”

According to Kerry, Bush should “give greater power and leverage” and be able to “summon the resources of all intelligence agencies in order to act against American privacy rights.”

Commission member Bob Kerrey agreed, saying that America has no room for civil liberties when “the enemy has no concerns for civil liberties."

Kerry also noted that unlike Bush, he would order all intelligence analysts to stop thinking of ways to harm the United States.

“If we figure out what terrorists are going to do before they do it,” said Kerry, “how will we get a mandate to create a more powerful intelligence czar?”

“George Bush claims to be forward-thinking,” said Kerry, “but he needs to think more seriously about how to uphold the Republican end of our political bargain.”