Going against the mainstream, Kucinich speaks out against what he fears may become a new ``imperial presidency.''

We have seen power grabs by presidents before, but in the past, lawmakers soon recognized that a chief executive was overstepping his bounds. Now, however, most members on Capitol Hill seem to be governed by fear and are giving the administration free rein without much oversight.

The White House offers -- and the gullible lawmakers seek -- few explanations. Who knows how many secret national-security directives the president has issued that could abridge the Constitution? Who on Capitol Hill is going to ask? Where are the congressional giants like those of who stopped Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937, when he sought to pack the Supreme Court, and those who curbed the war powers of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon during the Vietnam era?

Kucinich puts to shame his congressional colleagues, who bowed in silence to the chipping away of our liberties last October when they passed President Bush's anti-terrorism bill, the USA Patriot Act. It gives the government greater power to conduct searches, detain or deport suspects, eavesdrop on Internet communications, monitor financial transactions and obtain electronic records on individuals.

In February, Kucinich told the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action: ''Let us pray that our nation's leaders will not be overcome with fear. Because today there is great fear in our great Capitol.'' He pictured a Congress cordoned off and filled with a ''labyrinth of concrete barriers.'' These restraints, he added, ``trap us in a state of fear (and make us) ill-equipped to deal with patriot games, the mind games, the war games of an unelected president and his undetected vice president.''

Kucinich has introduced a bill, with 43 co-signers, to create a cabinet-level Department of Peace that would find ways to bring peace ''in our homes, families, schools and neighborhoods, in our cities and nation'' and ``create conditions for peace worldwide.''

It all sounds idealistic and farfetched, but Kucinich points out that the United States has brought about many revolutionary social changes that once were considered impossible such as the abolition of slavery and the enfranchisement of women.

Kucinich is issuing a call ``for peaceful, nonviolent citizen action to protect our precious world from a widening war and from stumbling into nuclear catastrophe.''

Noting that the United States spends approximately $400 billion a year for military purposes, he said, ''We can make war archaic.'' But to do so, people must ''challenge those who believe war is inevitable'' and particularly those who believe that nations have a right to use nuclear weapons, who seek nuclear escalation and who would break nuclear treaties.

Kucinich said the United States should abide by the principles of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; revive the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; sign and enforce the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; abandon plans to build a nuclear missile shield; and prohibit the introduction of weapons into outer space.

None of these suggestions fits into Bush's agenda for arming the heavens and refining some of our nuclear weapons for battlefield use.

Kucinich listed a number of end runs that some administration officials are trying to sneak by Congress. They include plans to attack Iraq and to keep indefinitely some U.S.-held detainees at Guantánamo.

In addition, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who seems to be wearing a new hat as a minister of justice, says that he would bar some of the suspected foreign terrorists from returning to their homelands even if they are tried and found innocent. Can you believe it?

Kucinich also points out that Congress did not approve the administration's planned military tribunals that would curtail due process. Nor did Congress authorize the administration ``to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases.''

In his February speech, the lawmaker projected his vision of an America that stands not in pursuit of an axis of evil but one that is itself the axis of hope, faith, peace and freedom.

Helen Thomas, a longtime White House correspondent, is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers.

Copyright 2002 Hearst Newspapers

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