In the summer of 1864, President Abraham Lincoln was on the rocks. With half of his country in armed rebellion, hundreds of thousands dead, his Army meeting only limited success against the South, terrorist bands roaming the western territories, and a strong challenge looming from a Democrat promising peace, Lincoln was in bad shape for reelection. If that wasn't a national crisis, the United States has never had one. And although Lincoln didn't hesitate to curtail personal rights during the Civil War and wield more concentrated Federal power than any President before or since, he never went as far as George W. Bush did this week.
When Homeland color code czar Tom Ridge was trotted out by an increasingly desperate President to discuss postponing the November election if "the unthinkable" happens, the Bush Administration crossed one more line into infamy. Short of a reconstituted Soviet Union launching a wide-ranging nuclear strike on the U.S., there is no reason that can be imagined for putting off the November judgement of the people save one: extra-Constitutional treason. To suggest it - especially when Ridge openly admitted his departmet has no hard evidence of the "unthinkable" - is a blatant political attempt to scare the electorate into making the implied safe choice of incumbency.
The unthinkable happened in New York City in 2001, on primary day as a matter of fact. Wisely, the primary was postponed for two weeks, and talk of granting emergency extensions of political terms of office were quickly quashed. The election season went on, even as the rubble was being sifted for body parts. That election, with its muted campaigning, was a testament to the strength of our democracy - it showed that we all believe strongly in true democratic values, even in the face of adversity. To suggest that a national election, across 50 states, should be postponed because of an attack from a band of guttersnipe terrorists, is in itself a disgrace, and an affront to those fighting and dying overseas. The suggestion itself is calculating, unprincipled, dishonorable, un-American.
