Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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What's the Alternative?

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

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The FALL SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE is still on! If you subscribed last Fall (not this past Winter) it's time. If you've never subscribed it's really time. In any event, go to the FALL SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE page and see what it's all about.

Last week the House and the Senate voted on (and approved) the President's request for $87 Billion in additional funding to support the troops in, and to help with the rebuilding of, Iraq.

The House approved the bill 303-125 and the Senate voted 87-12 in favor of the legislation.

Before the shouting starts, let's make it clear I am not accusing anyone - no matter how they voted - as being anti-American, anti-patriotic, or anti-military.

I AM accusing them of playing politics with war.

All of the 12 who voted against the money in the Senate were Democrats.

Two of the Democrats who voted against the money are candidates for President: John Kerry (D-Mass) and John Edwards (D-NC).

General Wesley Clark (R/D-Ark) showed the kind of leadership the Democrats appear to be looking for when he released a statement in which he said, "I'm running for President, not for Congress."

Sherman! Into the Wayback machine! Kerry and Edwards both voted FOR the resolution granting the President the authority to invade Iraq and free the Iraqi people from the horrors of the Saddam regime.

But that was before Howard Dean, who had total and complete control of the Vermont National Guard when he was Governor, staked out a strong anti-war stance and remains near or at the top of the Democrats' list of nominee-wanabees.

Dean is the darling of the no-war-at-any-cost wing of the Democratic party which, as it happens, is the wing which is most likely to vote in at least the early primaries.

So, it is not a surprise that the Democrats for President who do not happen to be named "Dean" are racing to their left to embrace his policy positions.

In a column this week, Roll Call's Executive Editor, Morton Kondracke wrote that the Dean-Kerry-Edwards position could only be described "as a massive pander to anti-Bush, anti-war sentiment raging in the Democratic Party�

On Fox News Sunday last weekend, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee - Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) voted against the money. After hemming and hawing about (a) why she voted against it and (b) what the alternative to spending that money might be, Brit Hume had this brief back-and-forth:

HUME: I want to ask you a question about this. One senses -- let me ask you this question.
HARMAN: OK.
HUME: If you were casting the deciding vote...
HARMAN: The vote.
HUME: ... on this, would you vote as you did?
HARMAN: If I were casting...
HUME: The deciding vote.
HARMAN: I think if the vote -- frankly, I think that the administration assumed this would be a slam dunk and that it didn't have to deal with folks. And that's infuriating.
HUME: It's a yes or no, Congresswoman Harman, would you have cast the deciding vote as you did?

It will not surprise you to learn she never answered that question. She did, however, finally agree with Hume's characterization of her vote as "a protest vote."

The notion of the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee - a committee which is supposed to be THE most non-partisan committee in the House - casting a protest vote on an issue of this magnitude is astounding.

That there has not been a greater outcry by House Republicans is a bit disappointing.

In the protest-vote front, as Kondracke wrote near the end of his column:

It's conceivable that Dean, Edwards or Kerry might declare that they knew Congress would approve Bush's request and that they were merely casting "protest votes." That's indefensible. Presidents and wannabe presidents don't cast protest votes.
They lead.

Well put.

Here's what's on today's Secret Decoder Ring page: Links to the Morton Kondracke piece and to the transcript of the Jane Harman interview; a confusing Mullfoto and a pretty good Catchy Caption.

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