Channelling George III

If there is any question that Republicans will shamelessly say the most outrageous things, read George Melloan's editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. In it, Melloan accuses John Kerry of treason. Explicitly. As in "Kerry gave Hanoi aid and comfort" during the Vietnam war.

In case you haven't read your Constitution lately, giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy is one of two defined ways in which someone can commit treason (the other is levying war -- that is, actively taking up arms -- against the United States). Considering that treason is the only crime defined in the Constitution, it would seem to follow that any accusation of treason is, or ought to be, a serious accusation, and should not be made for the purpose of partisan advantage.

In fact, the reason that the Framers took pains to define treason in the Constitution is because trumped-up accusations of treason were a favorite tactic of King George's government. At the time, "constructive treason" could be charged for the subjective offense of ''compass[ing] or imagin[ing] the death of our lord the King", which, in practice, meant almost anything. Hurst, in The Law of Treason in the United States -- Selected Essays, described it this way: "The charge of compassing the king's death had been the principal instrument by which 'treason' had been used to suppress a wide range of political opposition, from acts obviously dangerous to order and likely in fact to lead to the king's death to the mere speaking or writing of views restrictive of the royal authority."

This is what the Founders were concerned about. As a number of scholars have noted, "remarks in the ratifying conventions, and contemporaneous public comment make clear that a restrictive concept of the crime was imposed and that ordinary partisan divisions within political society were not to be escalated by the stronger into capital charges of treason, as so often had happened in England." [link]

Clearly, therefore in this country, at least, treason means something different, and something more, than simply dissenting or protesting. And that is why George Melloan's editorial is dangerous and ought to be repudiated by mainstream Republicans. In fact, the acts that he accuses Kerry of -- demonstrably disavowing the honors bestowed by his country for acts he considered morally wrong -- are hardly acts that advocated the violent overthrow of the government or provided actual resources to people plotting such an overthrow. He threw some battle ribbons over a fence, and spoke his mind about what he had seen. Hardly the stuff of treason.

And yet, somehow, Melloan and many Republicans in the Bush Administration seem to hold the view that dissent is tantamount to treason. How else to explain Attorney General Ashcroft's statement that opponents of the Patriot Act who raised the "spectres of lost liberties" only aided terrorists? I guess, to preserve the reign of King George W, they're willing to throw out any principle, including those upon which this country was explicitly founded.