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I sometimes wonder if Americans have grown too jaded to appreciate democracy. Today I see that I am not alone in thinking so.

Eric Alterman of ”What Liberal Media?” fame writes:

Democracy Demeaned Is Democracy Denied

One of the saddest and most dangerous aspects of America today is that so many people—at both the elite and mass level—have simply given up on democracy and live their lives as if citizens should properly have no say in the actions taken by government in their name. Bush’s two main wars—the pre-emptive one against Iraq and the class war on behalf of the wealthy against the poor and middle class—would not be possible if Americans took democracy seriously. They would have known that the administration was dissembling about the nature of the threat posed by Saddam to the U.S. and they would understand that Bush is destroying the basis of middle-class prosperity for the nation and doing his damnedest to turn the country into Texas, with its largely privatized, beggar-thy-neighbor economy.

The article goes on to put the blame for this apathy squarely on the shoulders of the media. With Thomas Friedman at the NYT giving the administration a free pass on the WMDs issue, it’s not hard to agree that the media is at least partly to blame.

It seems that, like Friedman, most people don’t care whether WMDs are found or not, but that’s only tangentially related to the important issue: Did Bush hype the evidence in making the case for war? Although the administration is now bending over backward to deny it, I believe he did. (It certainly doesn’t help the administration’s case that Powell called their evidence “bullshit” in the rehearsals leading up to his U.N. presentation.)

Democracy requires accountability. Right now we don’t seem to have that. Until we start demanding it, I will have to continue to wonder if Americans are still capable of sustaining democracy in the United States.

Presume guilt before all else

On a somewhat-related topic, this article from the Salt Lake Tribune correctly identifies the Bush administration’s modus operandi: ”Just do it. Justify it later. And if later comes, and what you did can’t be justified, deny, deny, deny.” Although this particular article is about John Ashcroft, this way of thinking clearly permeates the entire administration. (Link from TalkLeft)

In the case of WMDs, we heard hundreds of very adamant quotes from the administration that Hussein had weapons that were an imminent threat to our safety. Now, after the war, we have found none. Not one. Not even a hint of one. Not even any promising leads. In the case of the 762 detainees held and abused, about whom Ashcroft “make[s] no apologies,” not one was charged with a crime related to terrorism. Not one.

If the Bush administration can so blithely assert that everyone from Saddam Hussein to Joe Immigrant is guilty, and defend its actions without a shred of proof, how much proof do we need to assert that it is collectively guilty of attempting to destroy the Constitution it swore to protect?