FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2010 MICHAEL GERSON
he final state to ratify the 14th Amendment was Ohio — in Septem- ber 2003. The Ohio Legislature had passed the amendment in 1867 but re- scinded its approval a year later, claiming it was “contrary to the best interests of the white race.”When Ohio finally rectified this embarrassing bit of history, just one legisla- tor — Republican state Rep. Tom Brinkman from Cincinnati — voted against it. His op- position was viewed as an isolated curiosity. Now another Ohio politician, Rep. John Boehner, the House minority leader, ques- tions the centerpiece commitment of the 14th Amendment: birthright citizenship. He is joined by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), along with Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R- S.C.). The amendment reads: “All persons born
or naturalized in the United States, and sub- ject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State where- in they reside.” This is not the only place in the Constitution where birth is decisive. Any “natural born citizen” who meets age and residency requirements can be elected president.
Critics of birthright citizenship are in re- volt against the plain meaning of words.
EUGENE ROBINSON
egy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty.” The party’s Senate candidate in Nevada wants to privatize Medicare and Social Security — and has called for the Unit- ed States to withdraw from the United Na- tions, though not because of the bicycle con- spiracy. And the GOP’s Senate candidate in Connecticut once climbed into a profession- al wrestling ring and kicked a man in the crotch. I could go on, but you get the point. Dem-
The GOP’s wild cards T
he Republican Party’s candidate for governor of Colorado believes that bi- cycle paths are “part of a greater strat-
ocrats may be facing a tough fight this fall, but Republicans are giving them plenty of material to work with. The big political story of the year may turn out to be the consequences of the GOP’s foray into extremism and wackiness. It could be that the party acculturates its not- ready-for-prime-time candidates, harnesses the energy of the Tea Party movement and sweeps to a grand old victory. There is also the distinct possibility that the acute philo- sophical split within the party — basically, a clash between bedrock conservatism and ut- ter nonsense — will hand victories to Demo- crats that they didn’t anticipate and frankly might not deserve. Anyone who doubts this assessment should reflect on the fact that major figures in the Republican Party are wasting valuable time and energy debating whether the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1868, should be repealed. At issue is birthright citizenship — the amendment’s guarantee that children born here are automatically U.S. citizens, even if their parents are in the country illegally. It’s hard to remember that as recently as three years ago, major figures in the Republican Party such as Lindsey Graham and John Mc- Cain were speaking out in favor of sensible, comprehensive immigration reform. But in today’s GOP, which is energized by Tea Party passion, Graham and McCain want to hold hearings on whether birthright citizenship should be abolished. Many top Republicans have decided that taking a moderate, com- passionate stance on illegal immigration — even on the status of innocent newborns — is just too big a risk. This exercise in being tougher-than-thou on immigration has the potential to drive Latino voters into the waiting arms of the
Ramping up the birthright battle T
They sometimes assert that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” must exclude illegal immigrants. It doesn’t. Undocumented im- migrants and their children are fully sub- ject to American laws. The idea of “juris- diction” had a specific meaning in the con- gressional debate surrounding approval of the 14th Amendment. “The language was designed,” says historian Garrett Epps, “to exclude two and only two groups: (1) chil- dren of diplomats accredited to the United States and (2) members of Indian tribes who maintained quasi-sovereign status un- der federal Indian law.” Advocates for bloodline citizenship re- spond: How could the authors of the 14th Amendment have intended to extend citi- zenship to the children of illegal immi- grants when, in 1868, America had no laws restricting immigration and thus no illegal immigrants? This betrays a thin knowledge of history. In 1868, there were a variety of federal laws that restricted naturalization to whites and established waiting periods for citizenship. Civil War America did not lack for un- popular immigrants. The 1860 Census found that 13.2 percent of the U.S. popula- tion was foreign-born. The figure today is 12.3 percent. During the debate over the
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CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
14th Amendment, Sen. Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania complained that birthright citizenship would include Gypsies, “who pay no taxes; who never perform military service; who do nothing, in fact, which be- comes the citizen.” Others objected that the children of Chinese laborers would be cov- ered. Supporters of the 14th Amendment conceded both cases — and defended them. Said Sen. John Conness of California: “We are entirely ready to accept the provision proposed in this constitutional amend- ment, that the children born here of Mon- golian parents shall be declared by the Con- stitution of the United States to be entitled to civil rights and to equal protection before the law with others.” The Radical Republicans who wrote the
14th Amendment were, in fact, quite radi- cal. They were critical not just of the Con- federacy’s view of citizenship but also of the Constitution’s original silence on the issue, which, in their view, betrayed the promise of the Declaration of Independence. Their main goal was expressed in birthright citi- zenship: to prevent a future majority from stealing the rights of children of any back- ground, as long as they were born in Amer- ica.
Today’s dispute over birthright citizen-
ship reveals the immigration debate in its starkest form. Usually, opponents of illegal immigration speak of giving lawbreakers what they deserve. But this does not apply in the case of an infant. Consider two new- born babies at, say, Parkland Hospital in Dallas. One is the child of citizens, the other of illegal immigrants. Critics of birthright citizenship look at the child of immigrants and feel . . . disturbed? Outraged? But why? Do they see a child somehow tainted by ille- gality? That hardly seems fair. A burden on resources? No more than any other poor child. An alien lacking allegiance? How could they possibly know? Why not a sol- dier, or an entrepreneur, or, as the Constitu- tion specifically permits, a president? For nearly a century and a half, Amer- icans have taken the view that these two children at Parkland start their lives as equals. They acquire their rights not be- cause of their parentage or their bloodline or the permission of politicians but because they are born in the United States. The radical, humane vision of the 14th Amendment can be put another way: No child born in America can be judged un- worthy by John Boehner, because each is his equal.
michaelgerson@washpost.com
Sacrilege at Ground Zero
A
place is made sacred by a wide- spread belief that it was visited by the miraculous or the tran-
scendent (Lourdes, the Temple Mount), by the presence there once of great nobility and sacrifice (Gettys- burg), or by the blood of martyrs and the indescribable suffering of the in- nocent (Auschwitz).
Democratic Party for years to come. More urgently, it can give Latinos a reason to go to the polls in November, and perhaps tip the balance in some tight contests. In several high-profile contests, candi-
dates who won nominations with fervent Tea Party support appear to be in the process of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The Colorado governorship, for example, would seem to be ripe for the Republicans’ picking. But nominee Dan Maes’ bizarre views about such things as bicycles and the United Nations threaten to deliver the race to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. In Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seemed in danger of suffering a humili- ating loss — until the Republicans nominat- ed the disastrously quotable Sharron Angle. Now it looks as if Reid may pull this one out, unless reporters take Angle’s advice on how to do their jobs. “We needed to have the press be our friend,” she told an astonished Carl Cameron of Fox News. “We wanted them to ask the questions we want to an- swer, so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported.” Not all of the GOP’s internal issues involve the Tea Party. In Connecticut, Linda McMa- hon won the party’s Senate nomination through one of the traditional routes: She bought it by spending part of her personal fortune, which comes from the WWE pro- wrestling empire. The problem is, ahem, the nature of the WWE wrestling empire — and the fact that McMahon occasionally ap- peared as a character in the ring. “Today the party of Bob Dole, Jack Kemp and Dick Lugar nominated a candidate who kicks men in the crotch, thinks of scenes of necrophilia as ‘entertainment’ and runs an operation where women are forced to bark like dogs,” a Democratic Party spokesman wrote, in what promises to be just an open- ing salvo. Then again, association with pro wrestling may not be a deal-breaker at the polls. Just ask Jesse “The Body” Ventura, for- mer governor of Minnesota. Democrats would be foolish to take a sin- gle contest for granted, but Republicans would be equally foolish to assume that some kind of sweeping win in November is guaranteed. The GOP knows what the Dem- ocrats’ campaign themes will be — but it has no idea what some of its own candidates will say or do next.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com POST PARTISAN
Excerpts from The Post’s opinion blog, updated daily at
washingtonpost.com/postpartisan
JACKSON DIEHL Why doesn’t Abbas
want peace talks? Give Mahmoud Abbas credit, at least, for consistency. Eighteen months ago, when the then-new Obama administra- tion tried to jump-start Middle East peace negotiations, the Palestinian president balked. He would not agree even to meet Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanya- hu unless Netanyahu made several big concessions in advance — including recog- nition of a Palestinian state on the basis of Israel’s 1967 borders and a freeze on all Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank. The Obama administration spent the
next year in a clumsy effort to extract those concessions. Eventually a rough compromise emerged: Netanyahu pub- licly accepted the idea, but not the pre- defined borders, of a Palestinian state; and he imposed a partial and temporary freeze on the settlements. But Abbas never changed. He’s still re- fusing to meet Netanyahu unless the Is- raeli leader — or President Obama — guar- antees those big concessions on borders and settlements in advance. What explains the intransigence? It stems, I think, in part from Abbas’s deep distrust of Netanyahu, dating to the lat- ter’s first stint as prime minister in the 1990s. When I met Abbas last May, I got the impression that he was expecting Ne- tanyahu’s second government to end like
his first: He would be forced from power by his intransigence on peacemaking and Washington’s displeasure with it. Yet Netanyahu has at least appeared to be more flexible and more open to a peace settlement. Perhaps because of his deep concern with the threat posed to Israel by Iran’s nuclear program, and the need for U.S. support against it, Netanyahu ap- pears to be seriously considering a deal on Palestinian statehood — though not, per- haps, on terms that Abbas or other Pales- tinian leaders would accept. So why not begin negotiations and put
the Israeli leader on the spot? If Netanya- hu’s terms are unreasonable, he is likely to come under renewed pressure from Oba- ma. By holding out, Abbas only focuses pressure on himself — more pressure, he said the other day, than he has ever experi- enced. He also opens the way for Netanya- hu to resume settlement construction when his partial freeze expires next month. Here we come to the real mystery about Abbas: Does he really want peace? Or would he, like Yasser Arafat before him, prefer the messy status quo to going down in history as the Palestinian who accepted that a Jewish state would fill two-thirds of the former Palestine? Abbas received a far- reaching offer from Netanyahu’s predeces- sor, Ehud Olmert, that met the territorial conditions he now sets. He refused to ac- cept it even as a basis for negotiations. Over the past year, the Obama administra- tion has disregarded that history; it has told anyone who asked that Abbas was ready for a two-state settlement. Soon, it may find out if it was wrong.
DENIS SINYAKOV/REUTERS A man on a motor bike views smoke from a wildfire near Kustarevka, Russia. Russia’s cruel summer by William J. Dobson T
he biggest story in Russia today is the battle to tame a national out- break of wildfires. The flames
have consumed nearly 2 million acres of forests, farms and villages in their path. More than 4,000 people have lost their homes. A dense blanket of smoke and pollution has settled over Moscow; hun- dreds are pouring into hospitals be- cause of illnesses triggered by the suffo- cating smog. Russian media are focusing on gov- ernment efforts to extinguish the fires, showcasing President Dmitry Medve- dev and Prime Minister Vladimir Pu- tin’s promises to hold local officials ac- countable for not preventing the devas- tation. What the media are not reporting is the Kremlin’s insistence, even as these fires rage, that a centuries- old oak forest on the outskirts of Mos- cow be cut down.
If you know about the destruction of
Khimki Forest, it is only because you have heard the voice of Yevgenia Chiri- kova, the 33-year-old mother of two who unexpectedly has become one of Rus- sia’s fiercest environmental activists. The Khimki Forest is a rarity in Rus- sia — a publicly protected green space. The land is said to have been one of the czars’ favorite spots for hunting boar. Boars still wander the dense oak groves, but the wild forest has dwindled in size after decades of development. Never- theless, what was left received the gov- ernment’s highest level of environmen- tal protection long ago, ensuring that it would remain free of commercial use. Three years ago, Chirikova took her daughters for a walk in the woods and noticed that many trees had been splashed with red paint. Online later, she read that Khimki Forest had been marked for demolition. The expanse was to be clear-cut to make way for a motorway between Moscow and St. Pe- tersburg. Chirikova assumed this was a mistake; the land was protected, and there were more direct routes that didn’t require bulldozing the forest. Someone needs to alert the authorities, she thought. But it wasn’t a mistake. Government
officials, some with clear conflicts of in- terests, stand to benefit from the project.
When she realized the demolition was indeed to go forward — recalling that time, Chirikova now says, “I was very naive” — she returned to the forest armed with fliers to inform others about the planned construction. With support from her community, she founded the group In Defense of Khimki Forest. She began organizing protests, started a pe- tition drive and worked with local jour- nalists to publicize her campaign. It is safe to presume that even if the
Kremlin had known who Yevgenia Chi- rikova was, it never would have per- ceived her as a threat. She doesn’t come from a political family. She had never at- tended a protest. But almost overnight a mother on maternity leave became a grass-roots environmental activist. In Russia, speaking out can be dan-
gerous. Chirikova’s supporters received death threats. They were detained and arrested on trumped-up charges. One of her colleagues, journalist Mikhail Beke- tov, was brutally beaten outside his house — and left with permanent brain damage. Chirikova responded by stepping up her campaign. She ran for mayor as a single-issue candidate, forcing the in- cumbent as well as Moscow’s regional governor to abandon their direct sup- port for the highway. She brought law- suits in Russian and international courts. Perhaps most effectively, she lobbied European banks to deny the Russian government roughly $750 million in financing. Ultimately, Putin was drawn directly into the fight over the 2,500-acre forest, issuing a decree — that contravened Russian federal law — to allow the construction to go forward. Afew months ago, I traveled to Khim- ki so that Chirikova could walk me through the forest she is fighting to pre- serve. The ground that drizzly April af- ternoon was still damp from the morn- ing’s rain. I asked, after all of her success holding the government at bay, what she thought would be the government’s next move. “The next step is probably that they will start building,” she re- plied. “We are ready. It is going to be very loud.”
She was right. Last month the Krem- lin sent loggers to Khimki. They didn’t have permits, so Chirikova was able to stop them — temporarily. Then the in- timidation began. She was assaulted and nearly run over by a thug’s car. At 5 a.m. on July 23, dozens of masked men attacked a campsite that Chirikova’s campaign had set up in the forest and beat her supporters. The police arrived an hour later — and arrested the activ- ists. Last week Chirikova was detained after holding a news conference in downtown Moscow. She was charged with holding an illegal rally. While wildfires burn around Moscow,
the government is mowing down an- other forest. The wildfires are a legiti- mate natural disaster. But the govern- ment’s ineffectiveness in extinguishing them is borne from the failings of the same authoritarian system that seeks to bulldoze Khimki Forest. Putin has promised to hold officials responsible, but he is the architect of the centralized, one-party system that has eliminated any genuine institution that can hold government accountable. Thus, fire- fighters have found access roads over- grown, ponds intended to refill trucks filled with sludge, and equipment in dis- repair. A corrupt, unaccountable politics does more than run roughshod over its citizens. It brings poor governance. Even after the last fire is out, the system that permitted this summer’s devasta- tion, and that destroyed Khimki Forest, will remain.
William J. Dobson, a former managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine and senior editor for Asia at Newsweek International, is writing a book on the challenges to democracy.
When we speak of Ground Zero as hallowed ground, what we mean is that it belongs to those who suffered and died there — and that such own- ership obliges us, the living, to pre- serve the dignity and memory of the place, never allowing it to be forgot- ten, trivialized or misappropriated. That’s why Disney’s 1993 proposal to build an American history theme park near Manassas Battlefield was defeated by a broad coalition that feared vulgarization of the Civil War (and that was wiser than me; at the time I obtusely saw little harm in the venture). It’s why the commercial viewing tower built right on the bor- der of Gettysburg was taken down by the Park Service. It’s why, while no one objects to Japanese cultural centers, the idea of putting one up at Pearl Harbor would be offensive. And why Pope John Paul II ordered the Carmelite nuns to leave the con- vent they had established at Ausch- witz. He was in no way devaluing their heartfelt mission to pray for the souls of the dead. He was teaching them a lesson in respect: This is not your place; it belongs to others. However pure your voice, better to let silence reign. Even New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who denounced oppo- nents of the proposed 15-story mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero as tramplers on religious freedom, asked the mosque organizers “to show some special sensitivity to the situa- tion.” Yet, as columnist Rich Lowry pointedly noted, the government has no business telling churches how to conduct their business, shape their message or show “special sensitivity” to anyone about anything. Bloomberg was thereby inadvertently conceding the claim of those he excoriates for op- posing the mosque, namely that Ground Zero is indeed unlike any oth- er place and therefore unique criteria govern what can be done there. Bloomberg’s implication is clear: If the proposed mosque were controlled by “insensitive” Islamist radicals ei- ther excusing or celebrating 9/11, he would not support its construction. But then, why not? By the mayor’s
own expansive view of religious free- dom, by what right do we dictate the message of any mosque? Moreover, as a practical matter, there’s no guaran- tee that this couldn’t happen in the fu- ture. Religious institutions in this country are autonomous. Who is to say that the mosque won’t one day hire an Anwar al-Aulaqi — spiritual mentor to the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber, and one- time imam at the Virginia mosque at- tended by two of the 9/11 terrorists? An Aulaqi preaching in Virginia is a
security problem. An Aulaqi preach- ing at Ground Zero is a sacrilege. Or would the mayor then step in — vio- lating the same First Amendment he grandiosely pretends to protect from mosque opponents — and exercise a veto over the mosque’s clergy? Location matters. Especially this lo-
cation. Ground Zero is the site of the greatest mass murder in American history — perpetrated by Muslims of a particular Islamist orthodoxy in whose cause they died and in whose name they killed. Of course that strain represents only a minority of Muslims. Islam is no more intrinsically Islamist than present-day Germany is Nazi — yet de- spite contemporary Germany’s inno- cence, no German of goodwill would even think of proposing a German cul- tural center at, say, Treblinka. Which makes you wonder about the
goodwill behind Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s proposal. This is a man who has called U.S. policy “an accessory to the crime” of 9/11 and, when recently asked whether Hamas is a terrorist or- ganization, replied, “I’m not a politi- cian. . . . The issue of terrorism is a very complex question.” America is a free country where you can build whatever you want — but not anywhere. That’s why we have zoning laws. No liquor store near a school, no strip malls where they of- fend local sensibilities, and, if your house doesn’t meet community archi- tectural codes, you cannot build at all. These restrictions are for reasons of
aesthetics. Others are for more pro- found reasons of common decency and respect for the sacred. No com- mercial tower over Gettysburg, no convent at Auschwitz — and no mosque at Ground Zero. Build it anywhere but there. The governor of New York offered to help find land to build the mosque elsewhere. A mosque really seeking to build bridges, Rauf’s ostensible hope for the structure, would accept the offer.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
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