William Cohen never served in uniform.
Dereliction of Duty Cohen’s MIA.
By Michael Ledeen, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
and author of Tocqueville on American Character
One could not ask for a better example of the corruption of
American politics than William Cohen, allegedly the secretary of
defense.
You will recall that Cohen was criticized some time back, when,
after attending a Hollywood party, he stayed at one of the posh
hotels in the Los Angeles Basin instead of spending the night
with his troops on a California military base. Some, perhaps
annoyed by his Armani wardrobe, suggested that a real SecDef
would have shown more respect for America's fighting men and
women than for a bunch of movie folks.
But then William Cohen has never been one to show excessive
concern for our soldiers and sailors. He's signed off on the
feminization of the military, and he's been fully on board
concerning the scandalous policy of arming the People's Republic
of China, for which he risks being long remembered. He was a co-
conspirator in the criminal behavior of Kenneth Bacon, Cohen's
henchman who leaked Linda Tripp's private papers to the media.
And he has participated in the cover-up of the systematic erosion
of the morale and readiness of our armed forces.
Cohen has been long despised by uniformed officers because of his
failure to stand up for them, but even Cohen's harshest critics
would have been hard pressed to imagine his total dereliction of
duty during the electoral crisis. It isn't much to ask from a
defense secretary that he insist all military votes be counted.
Yet during all the protests, law suits and charges of vote fraud,
one heard nothing from Cohen. Instead, he had his spokesmen issue
bland reassurances that every serviceman and woman had received
ballots, and all their ballots had been delivered on time.
There are scores of first-hand reports that a substantial number
of servicemen and women did not, in fact, get their ballots at
all, never mind on time. But even if they had, the issue went far
beyond that. Even Secretary Cohen must have noticed that overseas
military ballots were being excluded on the basis of outrageous
technicalities, often in plain contravention of federal
requirements. General Schwartzkopf noticed, and spoke out. Cohen
didn't. He played the bad soldier and kept his mouth shut in the
interests of his political bosses, even though, as Cal Thomas has
pointed out, it's obvious that the excluded votes are those from
soldiers and sailors either at sea, or in the most dangerous
places on the ground.
For this alone, Cohen deserves the censure of the American
people.
Why did he do it? First, because when things get tough, Bill
Cohen runs for cover. He's got spokespeople to take the heat for
him. Second, because he didn't want to be criticized by the
Democrats, and didn't imagine that the Republicans would be able
to hurt him. This is no doubt one of the reasons he went into the
Pentagon in the first place. He thought he was joining the
winning team. Republicans very rarely destroy their political
enemies, while Democrats do it all the time, bringing down
targets from Richard Nixon to Newt Gingrich. Katherine Harris is
halfway to the political gallows right now, and you may have
heard her remark that she hadn't heard from many Republicans
recently (and don't expect them to reward her bravery even if
Bush takes the White House).
The third reason for Cohen's craven betrayal of his troops is his
unquenchable opportunism, combined with a penchant for
McCarthyism. Nominally a Republican senator from Maine, he was
often indistinguishable from the Democratic left, particularly
when the Democrats waged open warfare against the Reagan
administration during the Iran-Contra Affair. On that unhappy
occasion, Cohen would publicly slime participants on national
television, and, when later asked for details by inquisitive
reporters, coolly remarked "sorry; I misspoke." But he never
corrected the public record.
That's for us to do.
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