These guys want to lead the free but mute their speech

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By ROBYN E. BLUMNER

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 10, 1999

New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Texas Gov. George W. Bush have figured out that the political instincts of a dictator sell better than those of a diplomat.

The styles of these two men may be different -- Bush is an "Aw, Shucks" opportunist and Giuliani is pure Machiavelli -- yet they've both used their power to shut down dissent. In Austin, Texas, peaceful protesters critical of Bush's administration have been repeatedly thrown in jail. In New York, Giuliani has decided that hizzoner really means "hizzliege" and routinely denies and delays parade permits to groups he doesn't like.

You would think destroying fundamental American freedoms would be cause to be driven from office. Nope. These days it's the mark of a true leader who should aspire to higher office. Giuliani, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, and Bush, who is running for president, have found that violating the First Amendment has no discernible negative political consequences and may even be politically popular.

"Speech suppression sells better than sex these days," says Paul McMasters, First Amendment ombudsman at the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Va.

According to McMasters, politicians use the bogeymen of crime, terrorism, moral decay, gangs and general depravity to justify repression. They get away with it because Americans are so illiterate about their inherent freedoms. In a 1999 survey conducted by the Freedom Forum, 49 percent of Americans could not name a single one of the five freedoms -- speech, press, religion, assembly and petition -- listed in the First Amendment. And while most Americans claim that freedom of speech is the most precious in the Constitution, they don't actually support its exercise.

"Americans profess an allegiance to the traditions and values of the First Amendment," says McMasters, "but when it comes down to specific cases, they actually believe in free speech for themselves but not the other guy."

The survey showed that 80 percent of Americans believe that flag-burning as a political statement should not be protected speech, 78 percent said that public use of words that racial groups might find offensive should not be allowed and 57 percent would prohibit the public display of art that some might find offensive.

It's no wonder Giuliani can get away politically with threatening the Brooklyn Museum of Art with dispossession for exhibiting distasteful art, turning City Hall into an armed camp, arresting street artists and ripping advertisements off city buses if they insult him. In April, the Thomas Jefferson Center for Protection of Free Expression awarded him the "Lifetime Jefferson Muzzle" for his "consistent and pervasive pattern of unprecedented threats" to freedom of expression. It created nary a blip in his popularity.

Bush, while not in Giuliani's fascist league, has recently been sued by a lawyer working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. Bush is accused of closing off the site of the Governor's Mansion to critics.

Despite the tradition of press conferences, rallies and pickets at the mansion, in recent months peaceful environmental protesters have been repeatedly arrested. The pickets claim that Bush's lenient policies on industrial plant emissions are the cause of the state's dangerous levels of air pollution. They were arrested after refusing to move to a newly established protest zone across the street from the mansion.

Tela Mance, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, says construction near the mansion created a safety concern for pedestrians who had to step into the street to avoid protesters. That's why, she explains, some protesters have been moved across the street. But this is "not a formal policy," Mance says. Others, chosen by the Capitol police on a case-by-case basis, can continue to use the sidewalk in front of the mansion.

Not surprisingly, the governor's environmental detractors haven't been among those chosen so far.

Bush's mistreatment of protesters today seems to concern the media and the public far less than whether the Republican presidential contender used drugs decades ago. If the media, which rely on free speech and a free press for their existence, don't see fit to grill candidates on their First Amendment record, then the public is unlikely to be concerned about it when casting a ballot.

Beyond the issue of basic respect for the Constitution -- the document they have sworn to uphold -- Bush and Giuliani's contempt for dissenters says something about their leadership judgment. These men already occupy high office, and they've proven they can't take the rough and tumble of being at the desk where the buck stops. The question for voters is: Why should we give them a bigger desk?

Abusing the rights of the politically powerless is not a sign of a strong leader but of a weak, insecure one. Until the American electorate figures that out, we'll be doomed to installing the likes of Bush and Giuliani on ever-larger thrones.

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