The Independence Party
David Broder writes in The Washington Post about Independence Days.
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American politics reached a critical turn last week. The revolt of several Republican senators against President Bush’s insistence on a free hand in treating terrorist detainees signaled the emergence of an independent force in elections and government.
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What it really signals is a new movement in this country — what you could rightly call the independence party. Its unifying theme can be found in the Declaration of Independence’s language when Jefferson invoked “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.”
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Now, however, you can see the independence party forming — on both sides of the aisle. They are mobilizing to resist not only Bush but also the extremist elements in American society — the vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers on the left and the doctrinaire religious extremists on the right who would convert their faith into a whipping post for their opponents.
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And that in turn would set the stage for a 2008 election in which the two branches of the independence movement — Republican and Democratic — could compete in a campaign that would, for a change, show a “decent respect” for the intelligence of the American people.