The "Democracy in Distress" message was then reinforced this morning at a Common Cause sponsored panel discussion on abuse of power and the need to return to core democratic values. The panel was held at the Alliance for a Better Minnesota's forum space near the convention, as part of this non-partisan group's series of events focusing on issues that our future President and Congress must address.

Bob Edgar led off the panel with a spirited description of the "Recapture the Flag" campaign and the "Democracy in Distress" ad. Bob emphasized how Common Cause is calling on both parties and their leaders to restore the rule of law and faithfulness to constitutional principles- the abuse of power and the failure of leaders to stand up for what's right must be stopped now, and it will take a movement to do it.

John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation, followed Bob by saying the democracy in distress message is precisely the right message for this moment. John has written extensively on constitutional history and powers, and he noted that if the founders were to somehow rise from their graves they would be shocked at how the whole system they designed- one to avoid having an elected King and to avoid the "dogs of war"- seems to have fallen apart. The powers given to Congress and not the President have been eroded and reversed, such that the light "box of powers" Washington handed off to Adams is now heaping with tons of supplanted executive authority. The most important work of citizenship today, in John's view, is to restore the proper functioning of government, and restore the basic functioning of the constitution. This will take a strong bi-partisan movement, but with Barack Obama and Joe Biden being constitutional law professors and Sarah Palin known for her passionate constitutionalism, at least somebody elected this fall will understand the need for it.

Heidi Kitrosser, constitutional law professor at the University of Minnesota, further described the "constitutional mess we're in, justified in the name of the constitution." Voters, said Heidi, have an intuitive feel that something is wrong with how powers are being abused, but are plagued by a disengagement promoted by supposed experts on "Meet the Press" and in Congress saying this is all supported by the constitution. Nonsense, as the idea that the President has final discretion and power in all things related to the administration of justice or war is precisely what the founders designed our constitutional system, with its separation of powers and "checks and balances," to avoid. What we need to do is take the present crisis and use it as an opportunity to reengage people, to "retake the constitution."

The discussion continued with the point that this is hardly a partisan or liberal idea- constitutional experts from the right and left are coming together to demand an upholding of the rule of law and constitutional principles. John Nichols argued that no public policy issue today- access to health care, the Iraq war, you name it- is unaffected by the need to recapture our constitutional principles. Bob Edgar offered that a moral test of this political season is how we respond to this undermining of the constitution. Heidi Kitrosser saw a grassroots discussion flowering forth across the country.

The bottom line for everyone is there needs to be more efforts like that of Common Cause's ad and "Recapture the Flag" campaign, to bring both attention to the problem and build support for those political leaders willing to stand for what seems to most of us like common constitutional sense. John Nichols said it well when he said Common Cause is perhaps the most "radical" group active today, in that it is seeking answers to the questions that voters will actually be able to use as to political power- and its abuse. A podcast of this panel will be available at... Now we're off to the rest of the first day of the "you never can reason with hurricane season" Republican National Convention...