Levin follows the example of Attorney General John Ashcroft, who included in his anti-terrorism package ideas that had earlier been declared indispensable to the war on drugs. Congress rejected them. Recast as weapons in the war on terrorism, many will now be approved. Just as ingeniously, Robert Zoellick, the US Trade Representative, argues for presidential "fast track" trade-negotiating authority as a response to terrorism.
My favorite example of this overreaching comes from the Cato Institute, which has long opposed Kyoto-style regulations to fight global warming. The reason used to be that the regulations were bad for business; now they're bad for war.
"It's time to back off on things like Kyoto and regulations that have the potential to tie our hands in any way," writes an uncharacteristically bellicose Cato commentator. "Halfhearted war efforts are for losers."
Now, many of these ideas are perfectly sound. Laffer's tax cut is fine with me; all tax cuts are fine with me. Cato's right on Kyoto. Surely Zoellick is correct in his passion for free trade, and maybe even correct that free trade would mitigate against future terrorism. It's possible that Reich is correct too; there's a first time for everything.
But we don't have to drag terrorism into it; we don't have to trivialize the horrors of Sept. 11 by using them to bolster an argument we were going to make anyway, whether the horrors had occurred or not. Farm subsidies and capital gains, fast track and global warming are all issues that can be debated on their own merits.
After all, there's only one kind of meaningful response to terrorism -- the kind that's lighting up the night sky over Kabul this week. The rest, as even Congressman Everett might admit, is just peanuts.
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