How to explain the behavior of Mssrs. Daschle and Byrd?
I won’t make any pretences to encyclopedic knowledge of American history, but is this kind of behavior, this almost irrational criticism of the Commander-in-Chief, from leaders of the Senate, typical, or even precedented, on the eve of war?
It occurs to me that most major wars in the twentieth century began on Democratic presidential watches. Some Republican demogogues have even used this as a campaign issue against them. I don’t, because obviously it’s an unfair charge of cause and effect. In almost all cases, it was a result of bad timing (though it’s not clear whether or not Nixon would have gotten us into Vietnam, at least in the way that Kennedy did). Whoever was in office at the time would have had to deal with the problem as history dictated. That said, I do believe that Mr. Clinton could have avoided much of the problems that we’re facing today with less feckless policy. Of course, Mr. Bush the elder’s not recognizing the need to remove Saddam at the time didn’t help, nor did Mr. Reagan’s folding in the face of the Beirut bombing, or his sending birthday cakes to the Imam…
My point is not so much about whose fault wars are, as the historical fact that Democrats are unused to being in the minority in general, and particularly so during wartime. Even after almost a decade of being out of power in the House, they still haven’t accommodated themselves to it, and the brief thrill of restoration after the betrayal of Jeffords, combined with the tight lead the Republicans have, have reinvigorated their dreams of running the Senate, so the Democrat Senators are particularly unused to, even unfamiliar with, being the loyal opposition.
This situation reminds me of the comparison between Nixon and Clinton in impeachment. Arguably, Clinton was actually guilty of greater crimes than Nixon was (though the House was unwilling to indict, and the Senate even more unwilling to convict). For instance, it was alleged that Nixon sicced the IRS on his “enemies list” though there’s no evidence that they actually carried it out. On the other hand, there’s a lot of evidence that Clinton’s “enemies” (e.g., Judicial Watch and Paula Jones) actually were targeted by the IRS for no reason other than raw and illegal political pressure.
But the point is that, while any rational person knows that Clinton really committed perjury, and intimidated witnesses, and that those things are really federal crimes, even when the testimony was “only about sex,” the Dems gave him a pass, because, well, he was a Dem. When the Republicans were confronted with a potentially criminal president, they sent the party leaders to the White House to ask him to step down.
Many say the difference is that Republicans have a higher state of probity, and in fact I think that’s probably true, but the real issue is that the Democrats have been in power for so long, for decades, that they consider it a natural state of affairs–their birthright as Democrats, and that any change in that state is a usurpation and overturning of the natural order. Their resistance to removing a corrupt president was visceral, not rational, and it in fact probably (and justly) cost them the 2000 presidential election.
Similarly, they think that they should be running the country, and live in a continual, festering state of resentment that they aren’t. Daschle and Byrd (and Clinton and Carter’s) statements simply reflect this mindset. It would never even occur to them that they should stand by the President, even in war time, because he was “selected, not elected,” and it is their duty to continue to tell the American people how the country should be run despite the smirking chimp that has illegitimately taken over the White House. It shows in their faces, their words, and their general attitude.
I find it reprehensible, but like the punishment for failing to remove a corrupt president, I think that they will deeply regret it in 2004, just as they did (or at least should have) in 2002.