Four more years!?!?! 7 high hopes and 7 big fears for Bush's second term

As Maureen McGovern memorably sang after another Most Important Presidential Election Of Our Lifetime, "There's got to be a morning after." And just like in 1972, Democrats woke up humiliated, Republicans rose jubilant, and advocates of limited government cast their eyes anxiously at a secretive second-term White House with a spotty track record on liberty.

Much has changed for the better these last 32 years, but the Morning After 2004 was still filled with unanswered questions about the legacy George Bush will leave, reason asked a variety of pundits, pols, and profs to tell us their biggest hopes and fears for the next four years. Their answers, given in late November, follow.

I Hope ... We'll See Democracy in the Middle East

Michael Young

IT'S PROBABLY A relief that the Iraqis, or most Iraqis, will be around in the months ahead to remind the second Bush administration of its democratization promises. Although the United States has focused on creating an auspicious climate for Iraqi elections at the start of 2005, creating an open society in Iraq has been decidedly lower on the list of American priorities since security in the country has gone south.

Will Bush in his second term stiffen his back and again insist on making Iraqi democracy (assuming that phantom comes alive) a linchpin for regional pluralism, helping undermine the Islamist militancy that caused 9/11? One must hope so, since otherwise the Iraqi adventure will have been a spectacular waste of life. Echoes of Arab democracy can still be heard in Washington, even if the advent of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state promises the inert realism that allowed so many Arab autocrats to prosper--unless Bush orders the pliable doctor (who would rather call a duck a rhino than jeopardize her relationship with the president) to place democracy at the top of her lexicon.

Why should Iraqi democracy matter? Because, as Bush has haltingly recognized, liberty is not solely an American or Western concept; because in the Arab context it will mean more security for the U.S.; and because many Americans and many more Iraqis have already died in an endeavor that can yet be salvaged, unless the conviction of defeat grabs us by the throat first.

Contributing Editor Michael Young (mdy100@hotmail.com) is opinion editor of Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper, which is printed and distributed throughout the Middle East.

I Fear ... We'll See Empire in the Middle East

Ron Paul

WITHOUT ANY CHANGE in the principles that currently guide United States foreign policy the shuffling of personnel from this post to that means little. As long as Congress and the American people continue to allow the president to ignore the constitutional requirement that Congress declare war, further military interventionism is inevitable. The only questions are how much further we can stretch our military without a draft, and how long before we go broke.

Without a reorientation of our foreign policy toward that envisioned by our Founding Fathers, the only thing that will end the current policies of preemption, foreign aid, and interventionism will be national bankruptcy. We cannot afford to maintain an empire, and all empires eventually fall.

Ron Paul (ronpaul.org) is a Republican representing the 14th congressional district of Texas.

I Hope ... the Constitution Will Make a Comeback

Jacob Levy

ONCE APPOINTED, FEDERAL judges aren't part of an administration, so they're not vulnerable to an administration's particular dysfunctions. Bush's court appointees won't be prone to getting fired for telling the administration things it doesn't want to hear, or for sticking to a principle rather than bending with Karl Rove's interpretation of the political winds. We have more reason to expect competent and successful change that accords with stated intentions in jurisprudence than in ordinary policy.

Those stated intentions aren't unambiguously welcome, of course. I neither want to see the 11th Amendment expanded further nor Lawrence v. Texas overturned. But there is a silver lining in the real chance that the Commerce Clause/10th Amendment revolution will continue and finally come to its overdue fruition. One to four Bush Supreme Court nominees could lead to some genuine supervision over whether Congress is usurping responsibilities of the states and exceeding the bounds of its Commerce Clause power.

This will not lead to the overthrow of the New Deal or of the intrusive federal state; the Supreme Court does not willingly move so far ahead of the political culture. But it could reinvigorate a public, political, and constitutional discourse around the idea that Congress is not a plenary legislature, and that it needs to exercise its authority within constitutional bounds.

Jacob Levy is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago and author of The Multiculturalism of Fear (Oxford University Press).

I Fear ... the Constitution Will Be Shredded

Nadine Strossen

MY BIGGEST WORRY is that fundamental constitutional freedoms will be eviscerated, either directly through constitutional amendments or indirectly through legislation that strips federal courts of the power to enforce such freedoms. My biggest hope is that we will continue to see bipartisan resistance to provisions in the PATRIOT Act and other post-9/11 measures that unjustifiably sacrifice civil liberties without adequate countervailing national security gains. I am optimistic that libertarians, conservatives, and liberals will continue to work together effectively to resist the steady stream of proposals to expand unwarranted government power even further; and that we'll enact reform measures, such as the Safety and Freedom Ensured Act, to bring the PATRIOT Act into line with constitutional checks and balances.