Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (3520)	4/1/2002 8:06:46 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Playing politics with talk about war plans " With President Bush due in South Carolina to help Graham raise a million bucks or so, the congressman rustled himself up some advance publicity and briefly stirred things up here. In no uncertain terms, he announced the impending invasion of Iraq, saying it would come by late this summer or early in the fall." By Thomas Oliphant, 3/31/2002 WASHINGTON JUST IMAGINE that Representative Lindsay Graham were one of those dangerous liberals. Just imagine the hue and cry if one of them had told the Iraqi dictator when the US-led armies were coming and dressed his revelation in the clothing of solid intelligence information. Imagine how that hue and cry would have been magnified by the war-engulfed press and embellished with calls for investigations and more. Graham, however, is a conservative. What is more, he is running to become the next Republican senator from South Carolina to succeed Strom Thurmond. And President Bush needs very badly for Graham to win. That, apparently, is enough to trigger a flagrant double standard in politics this year: If you merely want to have a national discussion about which countries we will be going to war with in the next several months you are giving (as Tom DeLay puts it) aid and comfort to the enemy if your partisan credentials are not in order. On the other hand, if you have your party card, feel free to have all the political fun with Iraq or the war on international terrorism you wish if it might help your campaign. What Graham - who is mostly known as one of the people who thought impeaching President Clinton was worth a half-year or so of government paralysis - did last week was at least entertaining in its flagrancy and certainly illustrative of the double standard. With President Bush due in South Carolina to help Graham raise a million bucks or so, the congressman rustled himself up some advance publicity and briefly stirred things up here. In no uncertain terms, he announced the impending invasion of Iraq, saying it would come by late this summer or early in the fall. As authority for this pronouncement, Graham cited the magical term ''intelligence briefings'' (he's a member of the House Armed Services Committee), various unspecified ''contacts'' with the Bush administration, and even his attendance at a recent conference in Germany. Alleged information of this kind is always helpful, and not just to Saddam Hussein. Guessing or learning the date of the presumably inevitable assault on Iraq is a parlor sport around here. Naturally, Graham's words evoked interest and inquiries. Whereupon his story changed. As the president neared South Carolina, Graham decided that he didn't really know anything about the timing of the final assault on Baghdad. ''I don't know when it's going to be, that's up to the military planner,'' Graham said, ''but I do know that it will be sooner rather than later.'' And just to maintain his flag-waving stance, he also said, ''I don't know when but I know this president is not going to let Saddam Hussein stay in power.'' This change naturally leads the mind to questions. For example, how can a supposedly in-the-know congressman say the invasion is coming in roughly five months on the basis of the most presumably sensitive, hard information and then turn around and rely on the same classified information to tell us he doesn't know? For the record, the White House line on Iraq, repeated in the context of Graham's blowhard behavior, is that no decision has been made and there are no plans. Apart from Graham's political strategy, what made his initial comment slightly newsworthy is that it had a context. From the Persian Gulf last week, there were reports of serious amounts of communications equipment and computers being moved from the main base in Saudia Arabia to Qatar. That could be significant if the Saudis in fact end up refusing to support any action in Iraq. The bottom line remains, however, that while the US intent is obvious and we should all assume covert operations are already underway, the when and how are up in the air and very much complicated by the continuing carnage in Israel and the Palestine Authority. It is also a fact that other than tough questions about allies and timing, there is no significant, partisan disagreement about Iraq in this country. The Democrats were quick to jump all over Graham last week, huffing and puffing about breaches of national security. I found the reaction diverting but off the point. The real point is that people got a chance to see Graham in action, presumably acting on the general GOP guidance to use war for political effect, but getting caught making a fool of himself in his execution. The Democrats may have a strong candidate in South Carolina this fall in a former college president and public official, Alex Sanders, who has a pleasant habit of acting like an adult. For now, however, there has been a good object lesson in the use of war for pure politics and in the public misbehavior of a congressman who has demonstrated how easy it is to be irresponsible. boston.com Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com. This story ran on page E7 of the Boston Globe on 3/31/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. [ Send this story to a friend \| Easy-print version \| Search archives ]