A chance to ask 'What if'

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

Over the past several months there have been numerous attacks on and defenses of the Bush Administration.

The issues have included:

• the war in Iraq, its justification and its execution;

• the response to Hurricane Katrina;

• the terrorist surveillance program (as the President and his defenders call it), or warrantless domestic spying (as opponents call it). Pres. Bush in a 2002 secret order authorized the program, which is said to include monitoring of e-mail, telephone calls and other communications of foreign nationals and the collecting of millions of domestic telephone records.

The point here is not to argue that the President or his policies were right or wrong. Rather, it's to consider the consistency of the response to these issues: Supporters of the President vigorously defend him and opponents vigorously say he was wrong.

That is to be expected, but what we as a nation could use is less of the expected response. How different would things be if both sides first asked themselves: How would I react if Bill Clinton had declared the war in Iraq and executed it this way? What would I say if Bill Clinton had handled the Katrina response like this? What would be my response if Bill Clinton had authorized the terrorist surveillance program/warrantless domestic spying?

Our answers may say a lot about the divisions in our nation.