As the Republican National Convention criticizes Kerry for "flip-flopping" their own candidate — President Bush — is doing a little flip-flopping of his own.

Bush, August 30: Can we win?" Bush said, "I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the - those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world." — AP

Bush press secretary, August 31: "Not only are we winning it, but we will win it." — AP

"There are some out there that are intent on trying to create a false impression," McClellan said. The press secretary had said the president only meant the war on terror won't be won "in the conventional sense" with formal surrenders or treaties signed and insisted Bush's statement was no departure from the past.

McClellan's defense of Bush's "flip-flop" seems to be the "nuance" defense. It's "Oh, yes, but what he meant was really more nuanced than that."

This, remember, is Kerry's defense as well — and one that has been heartily dismissed by the Bush Administration, the Bush Campaign, the Republican National Committee and the delegates at the Republican National Convention.

So, is the war on terror winnable? Of course it is. Just not with Bush's policies.

Yesterday was the opening day of the Republican National Convention. Rudy Giuliani, New York City's beloved mayor, spoke. Giuliani disappointed me, although that shouldn't surprise anyone. He spoke about the Iraq war as if it were part of the War on Terror. On CNN this morning, speaking with Bill Hemmer, he spoke of the Iraq war as if it were the War on Terror.

Giuliani spoke like a man who would willingly — who has willingly — robbed America of one of it's greatest assets: a pledge to never attack another nation unless acting in self-defense. He equated the despots of Iraq with the Islamists who attacked America on September 11. This lie, oft-repeated at the Republican National Convention, shows only that the men who attacked Iraq remain un-repetant, they remain committed to pre-emptive war antithetical to the principles of America. They view the Iraq war and occupation as a "castrophic success" (whatever that may mean), as Vice President Cheney put it in New York this past weekend.

Meanwhile the men and women who have robbed Americans of their Constitutional rights to privacy, habeus corpus and free speech — think "Free Speech Zones" — were subjected to the protests of a free city, a city that will not — unlike Miami and Boston — rob its residents and its visitors of the right to petition for a redress of grievances.

Yesterday, on the opening day of the Republican National Convention, relatively small protests took place at several locations throughout the city, including at the United Nations. As these rallies ended their organizers decided to march. They did not have a permit to march. They did not have a court order allowing them to march. They had not made prior arrangements with the police to march.

It did not matter. The protesters marched. They marched from the United Nations and other locations throughout Manhattan to Madison Square Garden. The police, rather than stop them, encouraged them. Slate reports that one NYPD officer, John Codiglia, took out his bullhorn and shouted "Here we are at Eighth Avenue! We got eight blocks to go. Good job, guys!"

The protest was perfectly peaceful. It was perfectly civil. Protesters chanted about war, about peace and about civil liberties. Cops nodded along. Cops, despite the lack of a permit, said that "This is what it's all about. Democracy at work, whether we agree with it or not."

When Officer Codiglia shouted his encouragement to the protesters they did not know where they were going. The march was largely improptu. Surely many wanted to go to MSG, but they didn't have a route in mind — as one protester put it, "How can you plan a march when you were told you couldn't have a march?"

But then Officer Codiglia shouted his encouragement. "Eight blocks to go!" The Slate reoprter asked him what was eight blocks away. The cop looked at him as if he were crazy and replied "Madison Square Garden".

When the march got to 30^th Street, right by MSG, the cops negotiated. Twenty minutes in a "Free Speech Zone". Better than nothing.

New York City has been invaded by a group that hates protest. They hate dissent, peaceful or not. They arrest people for simply wearing anti-Bush T-shirts in the wrong place. They hold Americans indefinitely in dark military prisons indefinitely without charge. They secretly search anyone they care to, and restrict arguments before the secret court that issues secret warrants for secret searches to allow only government lawyers to make their case. Defense attorneys and civil libertarians are not allowed even to enter the court.

But in New York City on Sunday and Monday the NYPD did not behave as other police departments have. They did not behave as the Miami Police Department did. They did not behave as the Boston Police Department did. They have allowed peaceful dissent. They have allowed impromptu marches. They have shouted their encouragement.

We are now in the heat of the campaign. We have only several months before Americans cast their ballots, before Americans decide whether they want their Constitution, whether they want to be a force for peace or war in this world. Only eight blocks to go!

Today I joined tens of thousands — perhaps hundreds of thousands — of my fellow New Yorkers in protesting the Republican National Convention. We spoke out against the Convention itself and the Convention's presence in New York City, against John Ashcroft, against the invasion and occupation of Iraq, against the Republican Party as it stands today and, of course, against President Bush.

For four and a half hours Americans streamed past Madison Square Garden demanding change. Protestors of all ages, all colors, all walks of life and from all regions of the country turned out to make their will known. They changed "What does democracy look like? This is what democracy looks like!"

As we passed the Garden several RNC delegates and officials stood on the steps and sidewalks to watch the protest go by. I cannot imagine what must have been going through their head as they were booed, hissed at and shouted down with cries of "Shame! Shame!". For a better part of a day. Thousands of people. Thousands upon thousands of people. New Yorkers, yelling "Go home! We don't want you here!" and "Stop taking advantage of our grief!"

Both the protesters and police behaved themselves admirably. I was heartened to see that, in contrast with earlier protests in New York City, the NYPD was out in regular uniforms and without riot gear. Their stepped down appearance was appreciated and no doubt helped prevent any actual violence.

The NYPD was supportive. Several times police officers made positive comments about the protests, several times police officers smiled and gave protestors the thumbs up. One NYPD captain even turned on his bullhorn simply to say "Thanks! Keep up that energy! There's another half-mile to go!"

While the NYPD may have been calm, supportive and attentive the major media was anything but. While C-SPAN carried the protests live foor their duration (with a note that "Protesters have been passing Madison Square Garden since 12pm) no other networks that I am aware of gave significant coverage to the protests, live or otherwise. FOXNews cut to live coverage of the protests only once: when a papier-mache dragon was set on fire and police responded by blocking the street.

I've found myself at a loss for words lately. Incidents like the recent introduction of secret evidence by the Justice Department into a trial about secret evidence have left me aghast. Americans continue to be searched without cause, survailed without oversight and ignored by their political leaders.

The choice is no longer about war. It is no longer about peace or occupation. The problem now is not whether the United States will invade Iran or Syria — it might, whoever wins the election — or how long the occupation of Iraq will last. The problem is not one of war, it is not one of peace, it is not one of oil or the environment.

Among the secret evidence introduced by the Department of Justice in its recent battle with the ACLU over the use of secret evidence was a government-produced document that was heavily redacted. Entire paragraphs were struck over with black marker. As the Washington Post reported, the judge demanded that the Justice Department reveal what lay behind the black marker.

The government had redacted, among other things, a quotation from a 1972 Supreme Court ruling on government power. The Court had written, and the Department of Justice had censored the following passage: "The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.' Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent."

The contest in November is about the fundamental character of the American Republic. It is, in fact, a referendum on that character. It is a popular vote, up or down, on the survival of the Republic as we know it. It is a referendum on the usurpation of Congressional war making powers by the Executive. It is a referendum on the use of Executive power to bypass the courts system, deny individuals due process and hold American citizens like Jose Padilla indefinitely and without charge.

The promise that America will never attack another nation except in self-defense, the ideals of the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the very concept of habeus corpus are all on trial.

On November 2^nd the American people will vote on whether to embrace the Imperial Presidency. The NYPD urges you, "Keep up that energy!"

The New York Times today reports on its front page that the FBI has launched a major effort to survail, question and discourage politically active individuals who may protest at the upcoming Republican National Convention in New York City.

The Times leads its story, which it placed center and above the fold in today's paper, with this paragraph:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been questioning political demonstrators across the country, and in rare cases even subpoenaing them, in an aggressive effort to forestall what officials say could be violent and disruptive protests at the Republican National Convention in New York.

The FBI and the Justice Department are using the possibility of politically motivated violance at the RNC to supress legitimate dissent. They are visiting potential demonstrators in great numbers, in efforts to intimidate them.

"The message I took from it," said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago, "was that they were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, 'hey, we're watching you.' ''

These actions are wrong and anti-American. They are wrong and anti-American not only because the FBI is visiting and intimidating people who intend to do nothing other than petition the government for a redress of grievances, they are anti-American because the FBI is punishing — or at least investigating — people before any crime has been committed. They are visiting, interrogating and survailing people who they suspect may break a store window or something during the RNC.

The Times calls the FBI's actions an "unusual initiative". The initiative may be unusual and without much precedent in the past twenty years, but it is not unique. The FBI engaged in just this sort of activity during the Vietnam War. They infiltrated and interrogated anti-war groups. They intimidated those who would question the administration and its decision to go to and remain at war. They sent dozens of agents to individually intimidate members of the anti-war movement.

After the wide-spread abuses by the FBI during the Vietnam years Congress passed a number of laws designed to prevent such abuses in the future. The FBI was prohibited from investigating political organizations in absence of actual criminal activity.

The Ashcroft Justice Department moved to remove those restrictions in the wake of September 11. Like so many other safeguards built to protect American's constitutional rights from the nation's police, these rules were swept aside by the hastily passed USA PATRIOT Act and accompanying rule changes pushed by Mr. Ashcroft.

It should be noted that the FBI insists that it is only investigating violent behavior, and is not attempting to investigate or "chill" political speech in any way. Interrogated individuals and their attorneys also say that they have generally been questioned only about violence — but that questions from the FBI have sometimes veered away from that limited subject.

An FBI employee — it isn't clear whether the employee was a special agent or not — recently filed a complaint with the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, alleging that orders from the Justice Department and FBI leadership "improperly blurred the line between lawfully protected speech and illegal activity" and could have a potentially chilling effect on legal speech and dissent.

The Office of Legal Counsel dismissed the complaint, saying that "Given the limited nature of such public monitoring, any possible 'chilling' effect caused by the bulletins would be quite minimal and substantially outweighed by the public interest in maintaining safety and order during large-scale demonstrations."

The FBI unit investigating the protestors is the anti-terrorism squad. Because, apparently, protests against a "war against terror" are themselves terrorism.

The message of the FBI's actions are clear: if you're going to protest, don't tell anyone who may let the FBI know. Don't plaster your intent, along with your name, on the Web or in public e-mail lists — the FBI is monitoring those.

I, for one, won't let the FBI's actions intimidate me. I will protest — peacefully — when the Republican National Convention comes to town. I will march, I will make my voice heard. I will not let John Ashcroft intimidate me into silence.