It’s the tradition, damn it!

However, Indian analysts suggest, Gyory’s comments could also apply to recent statements by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her spokesman James Rubin, that India has to “dig out of the hole it has dug itself into” by signing comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty unconditionally — a remark that outraged India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes and other Indians.

Gyory notes in the article that president John Adams was denounced by critics as “beast”, “monkey”, “hog”, and an “ass” descended from “the dregs and scum” of Ireland.

During the war between France and England, Thomas Jefferson supported revolutionary France while federalists such as Adamsbacked stable, hierarchical England leading to the war of words.

On July 14, 1798, Adams signed the Sedition Act, making it a crime to “write, print, utter or publish any false, scandalous and malicious” statement “against the government of the United States or the President with the intent to defame.”

Lyon quipped: “Americans better hold their tongues and make toothpicks of their pens.” He was sent to jail for sedition. He was the first person convicted under the Sedition Act but not the last.

During the three years the law remained in effect until it expired in 1801, some 25 Americans were arrested for defaming the government.

President Thomas Jefferson, a strong believer in freedom of the press, referred to this period as “the reign of witches.”

“As we approach the 200th anniversary of the Sedition Act,” says Gyory, “the recent verbal sparring of today’s Congressional pugilists offers a fitting tribute.”

“In this period of drift and uncertainty, national leaders again avoidconfronting genuine issues and major problems, choosing instead the personal invective so common in that earlier age. While the reign of witches has passed, the ghosts of history still haunt our public discourse,” he added.