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Politicizing
the War
October 1, 2002
By Ramsey Harris
 It's
been an exciting week politically. Fireworks have been blazing
on the Hill. Coming up to the midterm election, both parties
have taken off the gloves. Most people are not fans of the
political blame game or negative campaigning on anyone's part,
but some slander and lies are worse than others.
The Bushies may very well have crossed that line by suggesting,
intimating and at times stating outright that the Democrats
don't care about national security and are soft on terrorism.
Many congressional Democrats are veterans of World War II
and the Vietnam War, (1,2)
and are rightfully incensed by the accusations emanating from
the general direction of the White House. In fact, there is
plenty of evidence that top Bush advisors Karl Rove and Andrew
Card, aided by Marc Racicot and Tom Davis, have been purposefully
and willfully using the "war" in a blatantly political attempt
to improve their party's chances in November. The depths they
have sunk to must be evidence of their deep insecurity about
the upcoming elections.
President Bush I had a dilemma in the form of Saddam Hussein
in 1990. But unlike his son, Bush I proceeded with caution
and did the right thing. Although faced with Iraq's invasion
of Kuwait in August 1990, Bush did not demand an immediate
war resolution. Instead he sought the cooperation of the UN
and the US Congress, in fact waiting until after the elections
in November of 1990 so that he would be dealing with the Congress
that would be seated during any conflict. GW Bush wants to
invade Iraq but has no provocation, no justification and no
international support for a unilateral attack on Iraq. All
he has is past grievances and vague innuendo, none of which
adds up to a convincing picture of a significant imminent
threat from Saddam Hussein.
Yet in stark contrast to his father's circumspect approach,
Bush II demands a sweeping resolution from Congress that enables
him to proceed with military action against Iraq, or any other
country for that matter, a blank check of funds and power,
and he wants it now - before the midterm elections. He doubtless
fears that if the Democrats pick up seats in the fall, that
his plans to invade will engender less support. The Republicans
can largely be counted on to shut up and roll over, even against
their better judgment, but Bush doesn't have that clout with
the Democrats. Thus, detractors and supporters alike have
questioned both the timing and the rationale for immediate
action against Iraq.
September 11 was widely touted as a turning point for Bush,
as indeed it was for the entire country. Bush made some initial
blunders (like flying off into the hinterlands on the day
of the attacks instead of immediately returning to Washington,
and then waiting several days to even visit New York). But
he did manage to assume some gravitas and his administration
did at first assemble an international coalition against terrorism.
Unfortunately, Bush's megalomaniacal power grabs and arrogant
unilateralist foreign policies have long since squandered
much of the international and domestic support he enjoyed
last fall.
While the perpetrators of the attacks on America - including
Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar - remain at large, while rumors
exist of the Taliban reorganizing, and with coalition forces
barely controlling Afghanistan's capital city and little else,
Bush has shifted his focus - and the media's attention - to
a new boogeyman: Iraq and Saddam Hussein, who had no connection
to September 11 as far as anyone can tell. Apparently the
elusive Osama and company were simply too difficult to make
into interesting press. But an invasion, now that's a good
distraction!
The GOP has been counting on using the war to discredit the
Democrats on the campaign trail since shortly after September
11. Even more disgusting, the timing of each phase of the
war rhetoric has been carefully coordinated to maximize its
impact. All along the Republicans have claimed bipartisanship
as their sole domain, even while blasting the Democrats for
"obstructing" their conservative agenda.
In December 2001, admitting that the windfall of Bush's position
as commander in chief was a golden opportunity to press his
agenda, a Bush aide was quoted as saying: "Everything a war
lets you do, the president has been seizing on." (3)
At the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, Karl
Rove told GOP leaders that they should not hesitate to use
the perceived success in the war on terror to their political
advantage. "We can go to the country on this issue..." he
crowed. (4)
In May 2002, Republicans were raising campaign funds by hawking
photographs of Bush on Air Force One the day of the terrorist
attacks. (5)
Let's be clear, the photograph of Mr. Bush portraying him
as an heroic leader of the entire nation on its worst day
in history was available to its citizens only after making
a monetary donation to the Republican Party. In a secret GOP
strategy presentation that was inadvertently lost and disseminated
to the media. Karl Rove listed "Focus on War" as his top agenda
item for the Republicans in their fall election campaigns.
(6)
Recently, MediaWhoresOnline (7)
has charged that the GOP, led by Karl Rove at the White House
Office of Strategic Initiatives and Rep. Tom Davis at the
National Republican Congressional Committee, have spent millions
to intentionally disseminate lies about Democratic positions
in a coordinated nationwide campaign to smear Democrats for
failing to support the war, regardless of their individual
opinions or convictions. Indeed, many Democrats have been
as hawkish as the administration, so this strategy on its
face would seem untenable. It is only the distortion of the
truth that makes it possible.
The White House itself set the political stage early on by
repeatedly suggesting that anyone who disagreed with Mr. Bush
on anything, whether related to his response to the
terrorist threat or not, was an unpatriotic, un-American,
partisan traitor. (8)
The GOP leadership has backed up the White House on this strategy.
Trent "Both the timing and the policy are subject to question"
Lott criticized Tom Daschle in March for simply asking the
White House for an idea of where and when funds for military
engagement would be needed, a "clear understanding of what
the direction would be," by saying: "How dare Senator Daschle
criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on
terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field?" (9)
When Tom Daschle expressed his convictions about the war
on terror, echoing Mr. Bush's own early statements in saying:
"We've got to find Osama bin Laden, and we've got to find
other key leaders of the al-Qaida network, or we will have
failed," what was Majority Whip Tom DeLay's response? "Disgusting."
(10)
Lott and DeLay thus created the notion that the Senate Majority
Leader had no right or duty to ask the executive branch for
information in an ongoing military engagement - but mainly
because he was a Democrat. No such censure has been leveled
at Republican skeptics.
The spring and summer of 2002 have been filled with revelations
that the Bush White House had access to specific intelligence
information, and large volumes of it, regarding the possibility
of hijacked planes being used as missiles, and yet took no
steps to avert disaster but in fact largely ignored the issue
of terrorism. In one instance, we learned that a report of
worrisome Al Qaeda activity was presented to Mr. Bush during
his extended vacation at his ranch in August 2001, but he
was apparently too busy communing with the cows to take any
preventive action. (11)
Oddly timed announcements of arrests or terrorist threats
marred the lazy days of summer, seeming to always correspond
to new revelations of intelligence lapses that might trace
back to the White House. Calls for a blue ribbon commission
to investigate 9-11 were vehemently opposed by the White House,
despite the precedent of past events including Pearl Harbor
and the Kennedy assassination.
Bush only very recently changed his attitude when it became
quite clear that a broad swath of Republicans and Democrats
were in favor of it and were going to create the panel despite
his objections. (12)
But in the meantime, the White House engaged in full throttle
ABC (Always Blame Clinton) mode, to the point that press secretary
Ari Fleischer was actually forced to publicly apologize for
suggesting that former president Clinton exacerbated terrorist
threats and the Middle East conflict during his second term.
Recently, Republicans have decried Democrats for "daring"
to even mention Bush's poor stewardship of the national economy
and other domestic issues in a "time of war," or claiming
that any Democrat that tries to talk about domestic issues
is simply being political - as if caring about the everyday
lives of everyday Americans was suddenly a traitorous occupation
rather than the reason we sent our representatives to Washington
in the first place.
The timeline for bolstering Bush's war credentials while
lambasting the Democrats for opposing and obstructing the
war was escalated this fall, just in time for election season.
The case against Iraq has been brought front and center, the
threat of Saddam Hussein suddenly of dire urgency, although
Bush still felt perfectly at ease during his second month-long
vacation at his Texas ranch in August.
So why has the Saddam problem become so urgent now? Bush's
chief of staff Andrew card was kind enough to explain: "From
a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products
in August." (13)
But White House officials boasted that Sept. 11 provided their
boss with the perfect event to kick off his campaign to market
a preemptive strike against Saddam. (14)
But many still ask why now? Could it be that talking about
war with Iraq all the time not only diverts attention from
domestic problems and the corporate scandals that have threatened
to embroil the White House, but also the opportunity to malign
the Democrats for their inevitable opposition to Bush's over-reaching
plans for military actions and executive branch powers?
This strategy has possibly been taken too far by a White
House that carefully cultivated a bipartisan façade in the
aftermath of 9-11. But as the fall elections approach, as
the very balance of power in Washington rests on the outcomes,
as the remaining two years of Bush's only term revolve around
control of the Senate, the Republican leadership has apparently
convinced Bush and Cheney to personally roll in the mud. Beginning
in September, Mr. Bush began to make disparaging remarks about
the Senate's reluctance to rubber stamp his every demand on
the war effort and homeland security. The first tepid remark
was in Louisville Kentucky in early September, when in reference
to his vision for sweeping powers to totally reorganize the
government and ignore employee protections, Bush said: "I've
got deep concerns about where the Senate is headed. … The
Senate must hear this. I expect to get a bill that is not
in the best interests or vested interests in Washington, but
in the best interests of protecting the American people."
(15)
Shortly afterwards, at a fundraiser in New Jersey, Bush stepped
up the rhetoric on lack of commitment to homeland security,
saying: "And my message to the Senate is: you need to worry
less about special interest in Washington and more about the
security of the American people." (16)
(Which is a pretty asinine thing to say at a Republican fundraiser.)
Dick Cheney made an even stronger statement at a fundraiser
in Kansas, announcing that Republican candidate Adam Taff
would a better war supporter than his Democratic challenger:
(17)
"…he'll be vital in helping us meet the team priorities for
the nation, from winning the war on terror to strengthening
the economy and defending our homeland." (18)
The clear unsubtle implication is that the Democratic controlled
Senate is soft on terrorism, and obstructing Bush's ability
to keep the country safe. (19)
And that is a despicable sentiment, made even worse for its
callous political purpose. The clear intention is to deflect
criticism from Bush for his lack of vision on the domestic
front.
The Democrats have understandably become enraged at this
relentless rhetoric impugning their patriotism and dedication
to the security of this nation. Especially after having bent
over backwards to give the Bush administration the benefit
of the doubt on almost every security related request for
months, no matter how far-fetched or far-reaching it seemed.
Only recently have the Democrats began to balk at some of
Bush's wish-list that relate more to executive branch power
than to national security.
Two demands in particular have caused many in Congress to
pause, and not only on the democratic side of the aisle. Bush's
obsession with an unprovoked invasion of Iraq has many in
Congress and in the military ranks of the Pentagon and beyond
throwing up their hands in bewildered protest. And Bush's
intractable insistence that the proposed department of homeland
security allow him free reign to hire, fire and transfer federal
workers at whim, in violation of long-standing civil service
rules and protections, has the Democrats worried that Bush
has placed his own special interests ahead of national security.
(20)
Bush and a number of Republicans on Capital Hill have made
a mantra of the premise that anyone who would care to work
for them (that is, the federal government) is inherently a
fat lazy incompetent slob. However, there is no evidence that
workers' rights protections hinder anyone's ability to do
their public sector job. Quite the contrary, like the corporate
executives who raped their companies while their employees
dutifully did their jobs, the breakdown in the federal bureaucracy
appears to occur mainly at the upper administrative levels.
Wasn't it the field agents of the intelligence agencies who
were trying to get permission and support to investigate suspicious
terrorist activates, only to be thwarted and stymied by their
supervisors and upper level managers? Furthermore, suggesting
that union members are bad workers insults every fireman and
policemen that ran into the cauldron of the World Trade Centers
on September 11. Those men and women weren't checking their
union cards for their job descriptions. They were saving lives.
So last week, the Democrats fought back. On the Senate floor,
during the debate over the creation of the homeland security
department, Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a decorated Air Force
veteran, demanded an apology from Mr. Bush, insisting: "We
ought not politicize this war. We ought not politicize the
rhetoric about war and life and death. The president ought
to apologize to Senator Inouye and every veteran who has fought
in every war who is a Democrat in the Senate. He ought to
apologize to the American people. That is wrong." (21)
Of course no apology ever will be forthcoming from the arrogant
and intractable White House, where the "you're either with
us or with the terrorists" mentality applies to any opposition
to any facet of their agenda. The White House insisted that
Mr. Bush's remarks were reported by the media out of context.
Mr. Daschle replied that there was no context in which Mr.
Bush's assertions could ever be considered appropriate.
And the Democrats are not backing down. Hawaii's Senator
Daniel Inouye, who lost his arm fighting in World War II,
who holds fifteen medals including the Purple Heart, graciously
remarked: "And it grieves me when my president makes statements
that would divide this nation. This is not a time for Democrats
and Republicans to say 'I have more medals than you, we've
shed more blood than you.' This is a time when we should be
working together." (22)
A fiery Robert Byrd of West Virginia spoke for Max
Cleland, who volunteered for the Army during Vietnam and lost
both legs and his right arm in a grenade explosion, shouting:
"What about Max Cleland? Is he interested in the security
of the American people? I'm disgusted by the tenor of the
war debate that has seemingly overtaken this capital city.
… This war strategy seems to have been hatched by a political
strategist interested in winning the midterm election at any
cost. It is despicable that any president would use the serious
matter of an impending war as a tool in a campaign."
After months of abject cooperation from the Democrats, often
to the chagrin of their own supporters, Bush has engulfed
himself in a maelstrom of political backlash. Too late he
has called for civility, even while crying for a change in
the Senate Democratic leadership. Accusing the current Democratic
leadership of being incapable putting national security before
unspecified "special interests", Bush addressed a Republican
gathering, saying: "I believe we need to have a change of
leadership in the United States Senate. And together, together
-- we can work together to make America a stronger place,
a safer place, and a better place for everybody who is fortunate
enough to live in this country. They should not respond to
special interests in Washington, D.C. They ought to respond
to this interest -- protecting the American people from future
attack." (23)
The very next day, Bush met with members of both parties
and afterwards announced that the members were engaged in
a "deliberate and civil and thorough discussion." (24)
With polls showing waning support for an immediate Iraq invasion,
it's clear that the administration has failed to sell the
urgency of the Iraqi threat to the American people. (25)
Bush may have also realized too late that an outraged Senate
leadership can thwart his plans to invade Iraq, and that the
public won't care. Most grievously for the White House and
the Republicans, no war means no chance to exploit it for
their campaigns.
1 http://www.vfwdc.org/NLS/housevets.htm
2 http://www.vfwdc.org/NLS/senatevets.htm
3 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A54012-2002Jan2¬Found=true
4 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/19/politics/19REPU.html?pagewanted=print
5 http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0518-04.htm
6 http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/14rov.1.pdf
7 http://www.mediawhoresonline.com/
8 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A47968-2002May20¬Found=true
9 http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/28/144113.shtml
10 http://www.jsonline.com/news/attack/mar02/26314.asp
11 http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=list_threads&om=214&forum=DCForumID12
12 http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAQ8LXBI6D.html
13 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/politics/07STRA.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
14 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/09/10/anniversary/index.html
15 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020905-4.html
16 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020923-3.html
17 http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/25/daschle.cheney.iraq/
18 http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=5488529&BRD=1459&PAG=461&dept_id=155725&rfi=6
19 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62783-2002Sep24?language=printer
20 http://www.msnbc.com/news/812747.asp
21 http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&ncid=716&e=3&u=/ap/20020925/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq
22 http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=5502353&BRD=1947&PAG=461&dept_id=168657&rfi=6
23 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020925-6.html
24 http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/26/bush.dems.iraq/index.html
25 http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2002/09/24/opinion/polls/main523130.shtml
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