Posted on: Friday, September 27, 2002

Demagoguery, Bush, Daschle and Iraq war

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle would be 100 percent right in angrily denouncing President Bush for politicizing the war on terrorism — if his own house were in order. It is not.

You have to have been living on another planet not to have noticed Bush's cynical use of the issues of war and national security to advance his party's chances of gaining control of both houses of Congress in the coming election. Were he seriously trying to court bipartisan support for the blank check he's asking for in promoting war with Iraq, he would hardly run around the country accusing Democrats of being "not interested in the security of the American people."

Bush's slur, however, impugns the very patriotism of senators whose votes he needs for an even broader resolution to wage war on Iraq than the 1964 Tonkin Gulf resolution.

"Outrageous," fumed Daschle. "The president ought to apologize." Daschle's words would pack a great deal more credibility if he hadn't had his own eyes so carefully fixed on the same midterm election.

Many Democrats and even some Republicans want the resolution to urge Bush to seek U.N. support for any military action. But Daschle, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt and other Democratic leaders, with one eye fixed on the coming elections and the other on their putative candidacies for the presidential nomination for 2004, have tended to give Bush "the benefit of the doubt" on Iraq.

Indeed, they're hoping to quickly shut the door on discussion of foreign policy so they can turn the nation's attention to the economy and business scandals, issues they think will give them more traction for November. "To put matters in their crassest terms," wrote a Washington Post columnist, "they seem quite willing to sacrifice the odd 19-year-old soldier for the odd congressional seat."

The only Democratic leaders who seem to have risen above all this are Al Gore (see the adjoining commentary by James Klurfeld) and Hawai'i Sen. Dan Inouye. Speaking up for the tentative "doves," Inouye said: "To attack a nation that has not attacked us will go down in history as something we should not be proud of," adding that "It is American to question the president. It is American to debate the issues."

There's nothing wrong with fiery rhetoric in Congress, but the times demand that it be addressed to questions of war and peace, rather than partisan favor.