Last Tuesday’s election results reasserted popular sovereignty over an administration that ignored checks and balances to lead us to an unpopular and counterproductive war in Iraq and reduced civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad. It’s an unambiguous victory for democracy which will undo the damage and usher in a new era of peace, prosperity, and responsibility -- right?

Not so fast. While elimination of one-party rule certainly offers prospects for enhanced congressional oversight and attention to the common good, major obstacles continue to block broader intelligent action.

First, President Bush and the lame-duck 109th Congress that remains in office until January seem not to have heard the people’s voice. Despite the brief, shining moment of bipartisanship that lasted for a nanosecond on Wednesday, the president announced Thursday that his top legislative priority for this period is authorization for his secret, deceptive, and evidently illegal program of warrantless domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency. President Bush cares not that the new 110th Congress starting in January would be unlikely to approve this program or immunize the telecommunications companies and others who participated, or that the American people rejected the campaign platform of fear that insisted on ever-expanding “tools” supposedly needed to fight terrorism but actually used primarily for domestic law enforcement and to consolidate executive power in ways that threaten civil liberties. The administration’s stubborn persistence in the face of a possible Democratic filibuster isn’t a good sign.

Second, as we move from campaign slogans to concrete choices for Iraq, it becomes clearer that there are no good options. The widespread sentiment for change within the respective publics and politicians in the United States and Iraq masks widely divergent views about what should be done – with chatter continuing about trying to somehow find more troops to send, or resorting to even more counterproductive force -- making it more likely (as in Vietnam for years) that nothing productive will happen. The president’s intent to push through the lame-duck session approval of his undiplomatic, recess-appointee as U.N. Ambassador, John Bolton, augers ill for more diplomatic policies – including attempting to work with Syria, Iran, and other Muslim countries – that will be required for lasting progress in Iraq.

Although sentiment is coalescing around withdrawal from Iraq within the next year, accompanied by strenuous efforts at security stabilization, political reconciliation, and economic development, translating that sentiment into effective action runs up against entrenched perceptions that continued presence, military bases, and bloody engagement is in the national interest. James Baker of the Iraq Study Group is on record as disfavoring near-term withdrawal, as is leading Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Only greater intra-party pressure from Republicans looking toward the 2008 elections holds out any hope of persuading the president to bring the troops home sometime soon.

Third, the sad reality is that the damage done domestically and in terms of foreign relations over the last six years will be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to correct. All too often some Democratic legislators have joined the Republican majority in supporting serious erosions of civil liberties proposed by the executive branch, which have already ripped the very fabric of our nation unbeknownst to most citizens. Measures including the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act, the Intelligence Authorization Acts, and the Military Commissions Act have radically expanded governmental powers of surveillance; monitoring; discrimination against immigrants, foreigners, and Muslims; truncated due process and equal protection of law; and even allowed torture and war crimes. Major data mining programs continue, cloaked in secrecy.

Adopted because they appear “tough” on terrorism, these ineffective, overbroad, and counterproductive approaches cynically exploit residual post-9/11 fears and trauma and clearly harm rather than enhance security by diminishing focused, fact-based, careful counter-terrorism activities. Instead, they target and alienate Muslims, immigrants, and other innocent minorities and reduce cooperation from those communities and related foreign countries. But the administration’s success in convincing the public that we’re in an unlimited, perpetual “war” on terror (instead of a more nuanced struggle that must be fought on many fronts, mainly non-military) means that these measures will not be corrected as readily as other historical excesses in times of “emergency.”

Finally, although recent forces for change include expanded internet activism and greater alternative media, structural forces against change include the more concentrated and still dominant mainstream media as well as administration information and economic policies that continue to pressure the middle class and working class in ways that make it much more difficult for people to know and exercise the rights and duties they have as responsible citizens.

In short, while the election results certainly deserve celebration, the initial exhilaration must give way to a new focus on clear and realistic goals and sustained effort by Americans of all political stripes in order to restore domestic and global rights and security.

Chip Pitts is a Lecturer at Stanford Law School, President of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Co-Founder of www.principledaction.org, and a board member of the Dallas ACLU.

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