Neither Democrats nor Republicans can escape the "mean-spirited" charge nowadays. Can anyone name a national (or even state or local) political figure who really takes the high road? John Farmer, who writes for the Newark Star-Ledger (and with whose POV I don't generally agree with) made a good point in today's column:
Democrats must not block victory in Mideast
Friday, September 12, 2003
In their understandable glee at President Bush's increasingly troubled Middle East policy, Democrats miss the most important thing about this American moment -- that it is not in the nation's interest that the president fail in his bid to remake the Middle East. It is paramount that he succeed.
This is not to say that there isn't room for legitimate questions about whether Bush has chosen the right men and means, including adequate resources, for his policy of moving the region toward democracy and, in the process, isolating its Islamist terrorists and advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
At times, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sounds as if he'd like to squelch all dissent. It's an unattractive aspect of the otherwise engaging defense chief, something more normally associated with Attorney General John Ashcroft, keeper of the administration's thumb screws. Lord knows we don't need another Ashcroft.
But Rumsfeld is not altogether out of line when he suggests that the chorus of criticism, if it gets too strident, risks dividing the country, hobbling the president and inevitably giving aid and comfort to al Qaeda, the Iraqi opposition and the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. Not to mention those in Europe who do not wish us well.
The impact on our allies in the anti-terrorism effort -- in Europe and elsewhere -- would not be good. Why should they risk manpower and money to help if Americans themselves have lost confidence in the president or his policy?
Some liberals, not all by any means, see Rumsfeld's call to cool the criticism as merely another cheap appeal to patriotism. And maybe it is, in part. But it's also an inescapable fact that, for better or worst, Bush is the national standard-bearer for America's response to Islamist terrorism, and if he is repudiated on this issue by his countrymen, America is likely to find itself isolated and unheeded in the war on terror.
Some Democrats will argue that it's Bush, the man, who's flawed, not his makeover policy for the Middle East, and that the two can be separated. Bush can be berated, as he is now constantly in Europe, but the policy of rooting out terrorism and the regimes that facilitate it can be supported. Sounds fine in theory; not likely to fly in practice.
For better of worse, we're stuck with George W. Bush for now as the personification of American power in the world and policy in a time of terror.
So does that mean that Democrats must give him a blank check on anti-terrorism issues? Not by a long shot. But the issue is the most delicate and potentially divisive one Democrats have had to face since Vietnam. And they had best proceed with great care, lest Iraq become for the Democratic Party the debacle Vietnam was for McGovern Democrats a generation ago.
They face choices, not all of them tough. For example, there are home-front matters on which Bush is plainly vulnerable, notably Ashcroft's lust for even more power than the ill-named Patriot Act already gives him to suppress civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. Ashcroft now wants authority for the Justice Department to issue "administrative subpoenas" -- in effect, search-and-seizure warrants issued on its own say-so.
Even in the hands of someone sensitive to civil liberties, such broad power would be a risk. But to give it to Ashcroft -- with no provision for judicial review -- would be downright dangerous. Democrats would be derelict in their constitutional duty if they did not fight this power grab tooth and claw.
On the other hand, they've little choice but to go alone with Bush's request for $87 billion to stabilize and rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. Democrats have rightly complained in the past about the Bush- Rumsfeld refusal to come clean on the cost. Well, now Bush has fessed up and the cost is a whopper, especially considering the bind Bush's tax cuts have put the country in. Democrats will likely quibble about who's getting what piece of the reconstruction pie, but they'd better not bottle up the money to make partisan points or they'll hear from all those folks with sons and daughters, husbands and wives at risk in the Middle East.
Howard Dean, the Democratic presidential front-runner, says he wouldn't support a dime of Bush's $87 billion request unless the president agrees to roll back a sizable chunk of his tax cuts for the wealthy. Sen. John Kerry, another Democratic presidential wannabe, also wants some of the tax cut rolled back. They've got a good point, but it's not good enough in the current crisis climate.
Bush has made a botch of the anti-terror campaign, having squandered much of the world- wide good will he inherited after 9/ 11. But saving his policy in the Middle East is paramount if the battle against terrorism is to succeed. If Bush fails in this, we all lose.
John Farmer is The Star-Ledger's national political correspondent.
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