George W. Bush's handlers and allies have spent the week pouncing on John Kerry's comment last Thursday that when America decides to go to war, that decision should be able to pass a "global test" of credibility and legitimacy.

Kerry probably regretted that turn of phrase as soon as he uttered it. Predictably, Bush and co. have blatantly distorted the comment to claim that Kerry would give other nations a veto over American security policy, even though Kerry specifically stated the opposite only a few moments earlier in the debate.

But Republican opposition to a "global test" of American policy runs yet deeper: 21st century Republicans aren't just opposed to a policy "veto"--they seem to believe there is something untoward or cowardly about taking any account of the opinions of the rest of the world in forming and implementing policy.

This version of global "leadership" would have appalled the original American republicans–men like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who were deeply concerned that the new nation be seen as a respected member of the international community.

Consider the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." (Emphasis added.)

Translation: just saying a war for independence is justified isn't good enough. You have to give credible, publicly stated reasons.

Just over a decade later, James Madison voiced the need for the proposed new constitution to facilitate foreign policy decisions which would have international credibility. Madison believed that a key function of the proposed upper legislative chamber–the Senate–would be to foster wise deliberation about international affairs. In Federalist Paper No. 63 (generally attributed to Madison), he argued that the longer terms and enhanced stability of the Senate would permit a "sensibility to the opinion of the world" that otherwise might be lacking in the new government.

But why should America care what other countries think? Madison answered that question by making two points: "[T]he one is that independently of the merits of any particular plan or measure, it is desirable, on various accounts, that it should appear to other nations as the offspring of a wise and honorable policy; the second is that in doubtful cases, particularly where the national councils may be warped by some strong passion or momentary interest, the presumed or known opinion of the impartial world may be the best guide that can be followed." (Emphasis added.)

Translation: it is not a sign of weakness but the height of good judgment to make the effort to understand how proposed actions of the United States would be seen by the "impartial world." Madison--Secretary of State under Jefferson and America's first "wartime President"--here utterly refutes the Bush-Cheney doctrine of national infallibility. Indeed, Madison's version of the "global test" is far more forthright than the somewhat hesitant variant of the same idea voiced by Kerry and John Edwards.

Given Madison's view of the need to evaluate foreign policy actions with consideration to how they will be perceived by others and his hope that the Senate could help perform this role, there is good reason to think our fourth president would have been quite alarmed by the contemporary reality of a Senate rendered utterly toothless in the face of executive prerogative on issues of war and peace.

But Madison surely would be even more appalled and disgusted by the puerile notion that the best way to maintain America's standing in the world is to ignore the views and concerns of others in shaping policy. Events of the past two years have demonstrated the lasting relevance and wisdom of Madison's view.

Madison asked: "What has not America lost by her want of character with foreign nations, and how many errors and follies would she not have avoided, if the justice and propriety of her measures had, in every instance, been previously tried by the light in which they would probably appear to the unbiased part of mankind?"

Good question–and one Senators Kerry and Edwards must not be ashamed to keep asking of our current president.

Thad Williamson, co-author of Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era (Routledge, 2002), is a Lecturer on Social Studies at Harvard University and a member of the editorial collective of Dollars & Sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice. He can be reached at thwilliamson@earthlink.net.

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