John DiIulio | Our civic response deserves a 'C'

I began Sept. 11, 2001, doing what I do best: eating - I had breakfast in the West Wing.

A month earlier, I had resigned my position as first director of the White House Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives. This was my last week on the job. It had been a rocky tenure, but in my left breast pocket was the outline of a new bill.

The bipartisan plan was supported by everyone from Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) to Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).

I was supposed to brief the president that afternoon.

After breakfast, I hung out near the Oval Office. I was with two domestic policy aides, John Bridgeland and David Kuo. We were watching the news in Bridgeland's office when the second plane hit New York.

The West Wing's dignified din became a chaotic buzz. Smoke billowed from the Pentagon. We headed downstairs toward the Situation Room.

Most people who work at the White House actually work in the vast Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the walk from the West Wing. Many EEOB staff work long hours without leaving their cubicles except for snacks or bathroom breaks. I insisted on making double-sure that they knew what was afoot.

I was nearly stampeded as I approached the building's mighty steps. Obviously, they knew.

Now, however, I could not get back into the West Wing. Security officials shouted orders to run. Suddenly, I was doing something that I never do: exercising. I ran in a throng toward the Washington Monument. It must have been my high school football days or something, because I ran fast enough to blow by many younger, sleeker runners.

Unforgettably, an on-the-scene journalist who I had taught at Princeton University recognized me and bickered for an impromptu interview. "What will this mean for your plans? . What else do you think this could affect?"

Today, a half-decade later, the political science professor in me would like to tell students that our civic response to 9/11 has been outstanding. On at least four counts, however, our civic response to date deserves an overall grade of C - arguably satisfactory, but far from outstanding.

n Volunteering: "C+" - As Harvard University's Robert Putnam has documented, the post-9/11 surge in volunteering and charitable giving did not last long. By every civic engagement measure, the "9/11 generation" is anemic compared to the World War II generation.

In 2002, Bridgeland, the domestic policy aid, became the first director of USA FreedomCorps, the federal government's main volunteer mobilization arm. But after he left office in 2003, that arm went limp. Many grassroots nonprofit organizations, both faith-based and secular, must still go begging for the help they need to help others in need.

n Voting: "C" - Voter turnout in November 2002, the first national election after 9/11, remained low. Voter turnout in November 2004 was higher, including among college-age citizens. But overall, voting and other forms of political participation are no stronger now than they were before 9/11. Negative campaigns are partly to blame. The University of Michigan's Ted Bader has documented how political consultants have perfected emotional ads that stir fear and suppress participation in the political process.

n Pluralism: "C" - In addition to the heroism displayed by rescue workers, our proudest civic moments right after 9/11 occurred when the president and many leaders in both parties publicly called on Americans to resist becoming prejudiced against fellow citizens who happened to be Muslim. But bipartisan calls for toleration have become muffled. Led by Luis Lugo, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has documented opinion trends suggesting that many Americans are now less tolerant toward other citizens with whom they differ on religion.

n Preparedness: "C-" -After rejecting Democratic pleas for a new federal bureaucracy dedicated to "domestic defense," in June 2002 the White House suddenly offered a plan for the Department of Homeland Security. By 2003, the DHS was Washington's third-largest bureaucracy. The nearly two dozen agencies subsumed by DHS included the Federal Emergency Management Agency. With Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, FEMA became infamous. FEMA's failure, however, reflected profound dysfunctions within DHS. In books and reports, Penn's own Donald Kettl documented those dysfunctions even before the Sept. 11 Commission did.

With five years now passed since 9/11, two new books are required reading this semester. Without Precedent is by the 9/11 Commission's chairmen, New Jersey's former governor, Republican Tom Kean, and Indiana's former congressman, Democrat Lee Hamilton. Kean and Hamilton are diplomatic but devastating in describing Executive Branch failures.

Broken Branch is by Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. The two veteran Washington watchers indict the post-9/11 Congress for multiple derelictions of duty. Most disgraceful is its ongoing failure to clarify constitutional provisions concerning how the government is to function following a major biological, chemical or nuclear attack on the nation's capital.

Still, there are civic bright spots. Among the brightest I have witnessed personally were the hundred or so Penn students who gave up spring break last March to do dirty and demanding community service work on the Gulf Coast. Staring down the flood-ravaged streets of New Orleans' lower ninth ward, one student looked my way and said, "The country can do better, can't it? It has to."

Amen.

John DiIulio is a professor of political science and director of the Fox Leadership program. He served as the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001.

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