Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Timing. It's All in the Timing

Friday, October 17, 2003

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This will give you a little insight on how Washington works, and why it is nearly - absolutely - impossible to "change the tone."

The House and Senate are debating the President's request for additional funding to pay for the troops in Iraq and to pay for the reconstruction of the country.

On November 7, 2003, according to the Washington Times, Democratic Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, will "receive the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service on Nov. 7, directly from the hands of former President George H.W. Bush himself."

Notwithstanding the impending honor, Kennedy, yesterday, delivered an extraordinarily ugly speech on the floor of the Senate accusing President Bush of conducting a war which was "mindless, needless, senseless, and reckless."

The problem with this speech is, it was going to be delivered when the President was in California enroute to a trip to Asia.

That's actually not the problem. The problem was a significant portion of the national press corps was going to be in California covering the President's trip to Asia while the Senator was delivering his speech in Washington.

So, Kennedy's staff released advance copies of his floor speech a day in advance, lest it be as a tree falling in a forest with no one around to hear it - or report upon it.

At about the same time Kennedy was reading his speech on the floor of the Senate, the President, speaking in California, with the press corps in tow said:

"This country is being tested. We're being tested abroad, and we're being tested here at home. And we're meeting the tests of history. We're defeating the enemies of freedom, and we're confronting the challenges to build prosperity for our country. That's what we're doing. Every test of America has revealed the character of America. And over the last two years, no one in the world -- friend or foe -- can doubt the will and the strength of the American people."

And, about the time that speech was being delivered, the United Nations Security Council was adopting a United States-backed resolution which states in part, the UN "urges Member States to contribute assistance under this United Nations mandate, including military forces, to the multinational force."

This resolution, which according to the BBC "gives new legitimacy to the US-led administration in charge of Iraq, but emphasizes that power should be transferred to Iraqis 'as soon as practicable.'" It was adopted unanimously.

That's unanimously as in China, Russia, Germany AND France voted for it.

The People's Republic of Massachusetts did not, in this case, have a vote in the UN Security Council.

While the Democrats run around Iowa making rhetorical crop circles in the cornfields, waving their hands in the air claiming the President is playing politics with Iraq, they are, of course, the one's who are playing to their political base: The left, anti-war wing of the Democratic Party.

The current piling-on of Democrats on the Administration's policy in Iraq is unseemly at best, and dangerous at worst.

And, they offer no alternatives.

The best they can do is to argue that some of the money in the budget request should be in the form of a loan instead of an outright grant.

Nevertheless, Wesley Clark - who, like the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, doesn't get a vote, said through a spokesperson, that Clark "believed many questions needed to be answered about the request and the administration's overall plan for Iraq before he could say whether he would support the aid package."

Memo to Wes: You're not allowed to call "King's X." You have to vote one way or the other.

At a minimum, you would think the members of the United States Senate would give the Administration the same level of support it is getting from � the French.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the BBC explanation of the UN Resolution, and the Boston Globe's coverage of Kennedy's speech - before he delivered it.

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