WHAT NEW ERA? IT'S OLD POLITICS IN RED, WHITE AND BLUE

In the days after Sept. 11, the one thing most of us thought we knew for
sure was that we'd entered a new era -- the frightening realization that
America was no longer immune to the dangers and uncertainties that
afflicted the rest of the world. We were in a struggle, unlike any we'd
known, that could last indefinitely. The old politics was a thing of the
past. Government was, for the moment, trusted again.

But two months into our new, ill-defined "war" on terrorism, you have to
start wondering: What new era? With every passing day, much of our public
life looks more like the old era wrapped in new patriotic bunting.

To be sure, Americans are rallying around the flag, as they always do in
such situations. The most recent polls still show not only high approval
ratings for the president, but also a marked increase in support even for
political hitchhikers such as California Gov. Gray Davis.

But with some exceptions, our leaders look and act like the same old
politicians catering to the same economic and ideological interest groups.

Congress' first major piece of post-attack legislation was the $15 billion
airline bailout bill, essentially a gift to corporate shareholders. This by
a government (that supposedly celebrates the free market) acting on behalf
of an industry that for years had vehemently fought the tougher security
measures that might have prevented the calamity. If the customers show up,
the planes will fly, bailout or no bailout. Even Monday's disaster in New
York can't change that.

Then there's the House economic "stimulus" bill, consisting of such blatant
corporate tax breaks and so little for workers that it embarrassed even
some Republicans. This wasn't a response to recession or the new post-Sept.
11 circumstances; it was a payoff to corporate donors who hadn't gotten
theirs in the first round of tax cuts.

Meanwhile, the airline security bill, which should have been among the
first orders of business, and which the Senate passed by 100-0, was being
blocked by Rep. Tom DeLay and other House conservatives who oppose any
increase in the number of people on the federal payroll, even if it means
further delays in improving airline safety. All that despite the scandalous
record of companies such as Argenbright Security that have consistently
failed to catch people with weapons or screen their own employees, as the
law requires.

The list goes on: The administration, preparing for a possible cutoff of
Middle East oil, is moving to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but so
far there's been not one step to restore any effective program to reduce
the nation's profligate consumption of energy. Gas guzzling, it seems, is
the American way.

Finally there's Attorney General John Ashcroft's campaign to punish doctors
who help terminally ill patients to die under Oregon's assisted suicide law
or who prescribe marijuana under the medical marijuana laws passed by
California voters and those in seven other states. So even as the White
House purports to make war on religious extremists in Afghanistan, it's
doing the work of a religious faction at home.

This is not just a matter of an administration that claims to support
states' rights trying to overturn state laws. Nor, in the case of
Ashcroft's attacks on Oregon's assisted suicide law, is it just an assault
on medical practice, itself subject to state -- not federal -- regulation.
It's a warning that any physician who prescribes what some federal agent
regards as too much morphine to alleviate pain could lose his right to
prescribe any drugs, and thus his right to practice.

Both the wisdom of the Oregon law and the initiative process by which it
was passed are subject to serious question. But when Ashcroft says that
federal Drug Enforcement Agency operatives can easily discern the
"important medical, ethical and legal distinctions between intentionally
causing a patient's death and providing sufficient dosages of pain
medication necessary to eliminate or alleviate pain," he doesn't know what
he's talking about.

For many terminal patients, there's no bright line between them. The very
process of alleviating pain may hasten death, and if DEA agents can swoop
down on doctors in Oregon, they can just as readily swoop down on them in
California or Ohio.

All this is going on even as the Justice Department seems no closer to any
real break either on the Sept. 11 attacks or to the source of the anthrax
that's terrorized Washington.

On the contrary, it's become increasingly apparent that, even allowing for
the things that nobody knew about anthrax at the beginning of this scare,
the feds fumbled the investigation both within and between agencies. Given
that record, and given the continuing threat of terrorism and the stretched
federal manpower available to meet it, how on Earth can the feds justify
diverting resources to attacks on doctors and their terminally ill patients?

Is this the new era?