Condoleezza Rice was confirmed last week as Secretary of State by strong majority of 85-13, although the 13 nay votes were the second most ever for a nominee. Should we be concerned with Dr. Rice being approved?
Obviously Dr. Rice has made false statements. However, whether she lied is still debatable, as a lie is defined as knowingly making false statements. So if Dr. Rice believed what she said was truthful, she could be defended as misinformed rather than dishonest. That is, if you believe being misinformed is defensible when your job is to keep Americans safe and secure. The Bush administration obviously believed there was a link between Iraq and 9/11 as Bush repeatedly made statements such as, "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda." (6/17/2004, bbc.co.uk) Yet Dr. Rice said just a few months later, "While Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the actual attacks on America, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a part of the Middle East that was festering and unstable." (10/21/2004, wikipedia.com) Of course, 'festering and unstable' is not desirable, but the "War on Terror" was supposed to be a military campaign to find the terrorists responsible for the attacks and bring them to justice and prevent such future attacks. At a time when America is under attack, we need not divert our military resources to anything except those efforts which keep our country safe. If Iraq was not connected to al-Qaeda, the group responsible for 9/11, then Dr. Rice has mislead us and is unfit for this position.
But if there is an issue far more disturbing stemming from these hearings than the inevitable confirmation of Dr. Rice by the Republican-controlled Senate, it is the submissive position taken by members of the Democratic party, most notably Joe Biden of Delaware. Biden, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said of Rice, "She did no more than any other member of the administration, but they all misled." Here is a Democrat, duly elected to represent the people of Delaware, cozying up to the Bush administration through his support of a nominee he knows to be unfit for this position. Haven't the Democrats learned their lesson from 2002? When you become sycophants and support the whims of the Republicans, you can not use their mistakes against them. John Kerry was destined for an uphill battle which ended in a futile effort to separate his vote in support of military action against Iraq in 2002 from the actual war in 2004. Now that most Democrats have helped to confirm Rice, they have given the Bush administration a pass to again do as they please because they have retained no credibility to complain if something goes wrong on her watch.
It's time for the Democrats to again live up to their ideals of representing the masses and to be strong and purposeful in doing so. Democrats of years gone by were "liberal" for their time, but they always stood up for their party, their beliefs and themselves. Many would consider FDR and LBJ to be the most liberal men ever elected as presidents, especially on domestic policy, but these men were never weak when defending America or advocating their policies. Today's party leaders would be well-served to revisit history and remember that liberal is not synonymous with fragile.
Write to Robb at Robb614@aol.com
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