Divide and Conquer
the Voters
EDITORIAL, NYTimes on
the Web. June 5, 2006
President Bush devoted his Saturday
radio speech to a cynical boost for a constitutional amendment banning gay
marriage. It was depressing in the extreme to hear the chief executive
trying to pretend, at this moment in American history, that this was a critical
priority.
Mr. Bush's central point was that the nation is under siege from "activist
judges" who are striking down anti-gay-marriage laws that conflict with their
own state constitutions. That's their job, just as it is the job of state
legislators to either fix the laws or change their constitutions.
If there's anything the country should have learned over the past five years, it
is that Mr. Bush and his supporters have no problem with judicial decisions, no
matter how cutting edge, that endorse their political positions. They trot
out the "activist judge" threat only when they're worried about getting out
their base on Election Day.
The aim of the president's radio address — which darkly warned that
Massachusetts and San Francisco (nudge, nudge) are going to destroy marriage —
is the same as the Republican leadership's plans to trot out one cultural hot
button after another in the coming weeks. After gay marriage comes the
push for a constitutional ban on flag burning, a solution in search of a problem
if there ever was one.
All this effort to divert the nation's attention to issues that divide and
distract would be bad enough if the country were not facing real, disastrous
problems at home and abroad. But then, if that weren't the case, Mr. Bush
probably wouldn't feel moved to stoop so low.
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