By Bennet Kelley

As the nation commemorates George Washington’s birthday amidst a cacophony of “President’s Day” retail promotions, we should be mindful of poet Carl Sandburg’s warning that “whenever a people or an institution forget its hard beginnings, it is beginning to decay.” In this post 9/11 era of the “Patriot Act,” domestic wiretaps and dissent being labeled as “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic,” it is clear that we have “forgotten (our) hard beginnings.”

It was during these “hard beginnings” that a departing President Washington gave a farewell address warning this new nation of the dangers that lay ahead and which are very real today. Washington stressed that elected officials must exercise caution “to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres.” More importantly, questions about the allocation of powers between the branches of government should be addressed “in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for this (however well intentioned) is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”

Our nation’s first patriot properly recognized that the young nation was united not by a monarch or a shared ethnic or religious heritage, but by the principles embodied in the Constitution. That is why every president, vice president, member of Congress, the armed forces and every new citizen must pledge that they will preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.

The framers intended for the Constitution to be our national creed and a true patriot must always respect the legitimate roles and limitations of each branch of government — recognize that our personal liberty can only be secure when our government respects a citizen’s rights and that justice can only be rendered when due process is afforded. This is especially true during times of war since, as Justice O’Connor noted “it is during our most challenging ... moments that our nation’s commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad.”

President Lincoln stated in his First Inaugural Address, that if we “continue to execute all the express provisions of our ... Constitution ... (this more perfect) union will endure forever.” Washington and Lincoln would be alarmed and outraged to hear President Bush amongst fellow Republicans contemptuously dismiss the Constitution as “just a goddamned piece of paper” while also attempting to exploit politically his disregard for the limitations on executive power.

They would be astonished to see Bush and his allies claim the mantle of patriotism and declare any criticism of the president to be irresponsible or unpatriotic. But as Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith noted during the McCarthy era, “those ... who shout the loudest about Americanism ... are all too frequently those who ... ignore (its) basic principles.” To those who claim you either support the president or the enemy (which only seems to occur during Republican administrations), my response is simple — patriotism is not about supporting the President absolutely but rather “it’s (about) the Constitution, stupid!”

On Washington’s birthday we should remember our hard beginnings. We have inherited a republic that even its founders questioned whether it could succeed and yet has survived nearly 12 generations. This is a testament to our nation’s commitment to the values upon which we were founded, but also to the many great people who have stood tall when the time called for leadership, wisdom or service. Our greatness as a nation flows in part from the integrity of George Washington, the vision of James Madison, the strength of Abraham Lincoln, the determination of Franklin Roosevelt, the idealism of John F. Kennedy, the courage of Martin Luther King, Jr., and, most importantly, the dedication and commitment of countless nameless people who worked in some form to serve our country.

Above all else, we must remember that this bountiful valley of liberty grew from a single seed — the Constitution. This is not a historic document or a “goddamned piece of paper,” but a covenant between the founders and all Americans to come. On Washington’s birthday, we must recognize that it is our turn to stand tall and renew our commitment to preserve, protect and defend our Constitution in order that this more perfect union will endure forever.

(Bennet Kelley is the former National Co-Chair of the Democratic National Committee’s young professional arm, the publisher of BushLies.net and a Santa Monica attorney. He can be reached at bennet@bennetkelley.com.)