"Clear and Present Danger" Watch

Yesterday the Seattle Post-Intelligencer made the astonishing claim that

The constitutional standard for warfare is for the United States to face a "clear and present danger."

Now that the notion of a "constitutional standard for warfare" has been planted in the minds of 160,000 people, I e-mailed this inquiry to the P-I's "reader representative"

If the P-I is informing its readers that the constitutional standard for warfare is for there to be a "clear and present danger", then I'm sure your editors have a solid foundation for making this statement. Would you be kind enough to investigate and find out what references your editors relied upon to make this statement and to publish that information for the benefit of all of your readers?

I will update this space if and when I receive a response.

Meanwhile, Nexis jockey Bill Herbert sent me some P-I editorials from April 1999, apparently before the P-I's editors discovered the "clear and present danger" standard. I excerpt:

April 14 The plight of the Muslim-Kosovar refugees is taking on another horrible dimension with the fear that as many as 400,000 of them may be hiding and starving to death in the cold, snow-covered mountains of southern Kosovo

The question is whether NATO's leaders, including President Clinton, will do anything to help these desperate people.
...
NATO seems committed to its insufficient policy to strike only from the air, which is lower-risk. But there is growing popular opinion that the alliance must move more forcefully against the Serbs, including the deployment of ground forces.
...
NATO should do whatever is necessary, take whatever risks are necessary, to help these stranded people survive.

April 30 In embarrassing the nation before its citizens and the world, the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday conducted a pathetic series of contradictory votes on U.S. involvement in Yugoslavia that produced no real effect.

(interesting footnote, Seattle Congressman "Baghdad Jim" McDermott voted to support NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia)

What has changed between 1999 and 2003 that would make the passionately pro-war-against-Milosevic P-I become equally dovish on Saddam? Did Milosevic pose a "clear and present danger" to the United States, but not Saddam? Was the "clear and present danger" doctrine only invented in the last four years? Are Iraqi lives worth less than Kosovar lives? Or does the P-I reflexively support Democrat presidents, and reflexively oppose Republican presidents no matter how high the stakes?

UPDATE My neighbor Jim Miller, similarly fascinated by the P-I's apparent invention of the "clear and present danger" doctrine, gives the P-I editorial board a history lesson.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 10, 2003 10:49 AM