Bush's popularity unjustified

Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, George W. Bush's public approval rating has skyrocketed. Just prior to Sept. 11, a Gallop poll placed Bush's public approval level at 51 percent. The first survey following the collapse of the World Trade Center - just one week later - Bush recorded an amazing 86 percent approval rating. It subsequently inched up to 90 percent and has not dropped much since.

While I can't offer any conclusive proof, I can't help but believe that Bush has done little to deserve this jump in his popularity. Substantively, Bush has not taken any steps that any other president wouldn't if faced with the same situation. It will be difficult to judge with any finality the wisdom of embarking on a war against Afghanistan for some time, much less the morality of that war (it remains to be seen how many Afghans will starve this winter as an indirect result of U.S. actions). That said, I don't feel that it's a stretch to say that most world leaders would pursue a similar course of action.

Bush hasn't been the only public figure to enjoy a surge in popularity. The mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, seemingly woke up the morning of the 12th to find news commentators fawning over him. I'm forced to wonder, though, what Giuliani did that merited this outpouring of appreciation. In fact, the most notable action Giuliani took since the attacks was an oafish attempt at a power grab as he somewhat bluntly suggested that the New York State Legislature rewrite the term limit laws so that he could be re-elected.

The desire to rally around a public figure in times of crisis is certainly understandable. All across the nation, Americans have sought to assert their own patriotism. The subsequent wholesale endorsement of anything and everything American, including the opportunistic manufacture of $15 American flags to stick out our car windows, has swept up politicians such as Bush and Giuliani in its path.

Ordinarily, blind mass behavior like this might be good for a chuckle. This time, though, there is a very real danger in such categorical endorsements of America. It gives a free pass to our government to behave in any way it so pleases. Since Sept. 11, Republicans in Congress have used the terrorist attacks as an excuse to pass still more tax cuts for businesses - on top of the already sizable concessions in Bush's sick joke of a tax cut.

Even worse, congressmen and senators have been conned into legislating in the dark. In a recent interview, Representative Ron Paul (R - Texas) said that legislators were not even given the opportunity to read the text of the laughably named USA PATRIOT bill. The law (which was overwhelmingly passed) gives the federal government dramatically increased search, seizure and detention powers. Under it, the FBI can conduct searches on suspicion of terrorist activity without a search warrant.

The federal government under the leadership of the Bush administration (and the tacit approval of 90 percent of Americans it seems) is also taking advantage of willing compliance from American citizens to engage in extreme racial profiling. According to recent articles by The Washington Post and The Nation, somewhere between 800 and 1,000 Arab Americans are currently being detained by the federal government. What's worse, they are frequently detained on extremely tenuous "evidence." The Washington Post, for example, reported that one Pakistani man was being held without bond because he had renewed his driver's license half an hour before one of the hijackers.

These policies turn more than two hundred years' worth of hard-won constitutional guarantees of individual rights on their heads. The presumption of innocence has apparently disappeared for everyone, save our government officials. Unfortunately, that group, led by Bush and his ilk, currently seems among the most likely of all to commit offenses against the American people.