Former Senator Gary Hart has written a book review in the May issue of Washington Monthly, "Elective Surgery: Democracy and freedom don't necessarily go hand in hand." The book is The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria, Editor of Newsweek International. The book challenges the assumption that democracy is good for everyone and "posits a superior alternative, one he calls constitutional liberalism."

Hart says the book is really three books, and it is the final one, on the subject of democracy in America, that is likely to cause the biggest stir:

"[M]ost Americans have lost faith in their democracy," Zakaria says, because, as it becomes more "democratic"--that is to say, popular, diffuse, and open--it has eroded individual liberty. Americans don't trust their government and thus are alienated from it.....By making the political system more open, we have also made it more porous to armies of lobbyists and interest groups. Gone is any sense of national purpose, unity, or common good. The constitutionally protected media, under the rampant influences of democratization and marketization, "sensationalizes, dramatizes, and trivializes news" and inflames rather than tempers public passions."

Hart doesn't fully embrace the theory, and instead encourages debate about it, particularly with respect to alternatives for the 21st century other than the two Zakaria provides, which Hart describes as either

dimensional "democracy" or a more nuanced constitutional liberalism with institutional instruments underwriting individual liberty.

In other Hart news, Jack Sparks, his media spokesman, told the Rocky Mountain News that Hart may not declare his intentions (or lack of them) until late spring or early summer.

[thanks to Eric of Hamster for emailing the link to the book review.]