ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 29, 2003
After listening to President Bush’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday, I was left with one question: Whatever happened to Osama bin Laden.
Isn’t he the “evil doer” that Bush once wanted “dead or alive”?
Weren’t we not going to rest until we smoked him out of his cave?
"Our war on terror will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated," Bush once vowed.
So what did he say about bin Laden on Tuesday?
Nothing. Nada. Zip. It was as if he was never our Public Enemy No. 1.
Instead, Bush has moved onto a new villain: Saddam Hussein.
Saddam, who, as far as anybody knows, had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks on the United States, is our new target for one big reason: We know where he is.
Which is what the new U.S. policy amounts to: If you can’t find the villain you want to kill, kill a villain you can find.
Personally, I have no problems with somebody killing Saddam Hussein. He certainly deserves it.
Which is why I have long advocated sending an assassination squad into Iraq (or paying local talent) to take him out.
Instead, we are going to risk tens of thousands of troops and spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a war. And not because Saddam is any more dangerous than he was a year ago.
No, we are going in because we know where he lives.
The problem with this is that we are supposed to be protecting America first and fighting a war against terrorism second.
Fighting Saddam will hinder and delay both of those goals.
An example: As Sen. Ted Kennedy has recently pointed out, we have not yet committed the manpower and funds to inspect every cargo container that comes into U.S. ports?
Why is this important, even vital to our safety?
Because putting a nuclear weapon in the hold of a cargo ship is the most likely way that we will be attacked by such a weapon.
While we are committing billions to some “Star Wars” satellite defense system, attacking the United States by means of a nuclear missile is extremely unlikely, even if a rogue state managed to gets its hands on such a weapon.
Missiles are easy to track. Any state that attacks the United States by missile would be obliterated in return.
But putting a nuclear device in a cargo ship of international registry, sending it into, say, San Francisco harbor and detonating it would be relatively easy. And we would not know whom to retaliate against.
Which is why we have to check all cargo on all ships.
But we aren’t doing that. Instead, we are getting ready to go to war with Iraq.
Does this make any sense?
We are in no imminent danger from Iraq, which has not attacked the United States.
We are in imminent danger from terrorists, who have.
So why are we going after the former and not protecting ourselves from the latter?
Some cynics think it is all political, that the White House wishes to take our minds off a sinking economy.
If so, that plan is not working.
As Jay Leno said Tuesday night, "Earlier this evening President Bush gave his State of Delusion address. Very upbeat. He said other than the economy, health care, education, crime and the war, we're in great shape.”
Is anybody out there laughing?
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 27, 2003
WASHINGTON - - As we hurtle towards war in Iraq, I can’t help but think of what President John F. Kennedy did when he was preparing for the possibility of war over Cuba.
Cuba was installing Soviet missiles that were capable of hitting the east coast of the United States within minutes of being fired.
There was no real defense against such missiles - - today we would call them weapons of mass destruction - - and Kennedy had to stop them from becoming operational.
So he decided to throw up a naval blockade around Cuba - - an act of war - - and turn back the Soviet ships carrying more missiles to Cuba.
Kennedy’s actions were based on solid evidence: He had spy-plane photographs of the missiles being put in place.
And before Kennedy threw up the blockade in what became known as the Cuban missile crisis, he did an important thing: He shared his evidence with the American people.
He went on TV and put the enlarged spy pictures on an easel and pointed out the missiles and the missile sites.
Though some argued that such intelligence should be kept secret, Kennedy knew that if he was risking war, he needed the American people behind him and the American people needed to see the evidence.
More than that, the American people deserved to see the evidence. The war might cost American lives and the lives would be theirs.
The Bush administration seems to believe the American people no longer need evidence, no longer deserve evidence.
The Bush administration seems to believe that the American people have so much trust in their government and their president, that they will accept war and its agonies on good faith.
But I don’t think so. I think the American people want to see some proof.
I think we want to see the proof that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.
I think we want to see the proof that Saddam Hussein is a clear and present danger to his neighbors or to us.
Democratic senators, who serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and who are supposed to have access to such intelligence, say no such proof has been presented to them.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says such evidence is not needed.
He says that everybody knows Iraq possesses such weapons. “The burden of proof is not on the United Nations or on the inspectors to prove that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction,” Rumsfeld says. “The burden of proof is on the Iraqi regime to prove that is disarming, as required by the successive UN resolutions.”
Meanwhile, the United States keeps building up its forces around Iraq and within a month is expected to have 150,000 troops in place.
Once those troops are in place, they cannot be kept there indefinitely. They have to be used or withdrawn.
Right now, it’s a pretty good bet that they are going to be used regardless of what the UN weapons inspectors find or do not find in Iraq.
This has some people worried, including our staunchest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Tony Blair backs the forcible disarming of Saddam Hussein, but he doesn’t see what all the rush is about. He doesn’t see why we don’t just give the weapons inspectors more time.
"I don't believe it will take them months to find out whether he's cooperating or not," Blair says. "But they should have whatever time they need."
But “whatever time they need” is exactly what the United States does not want to supply.
Secretary of State Collin Powell, who used to be dovish on war, is now turning hawkish. “How much more time does Iraq need?" he asked a few days ago, adding that the United States reserves the right "to take military action against Iraq alone, or in a coalition of the willing."
But does that “coalition of the willing” include the American people?
Do the American people really have the proof they need?
Do you really believe the president has made a good case for war and for war now?
As someone once said, I am not worried that George Bush is dumb. I am worried that he thinks we’re dumb.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 22, 2003
WASHINGTON - - Oratory is no longer taught in the schools and few politicians practice it, which is probably a good thing.
Not many people go to speeches anymore; they hear their political campaigning via soundbites, which isn’t quite the same thing.
Yet those people who do show up at speeches, especially presidential campaign speeches, invariably show up to be inspired and they are almost invariably disappointed.
Running for president is such a high stakes game, in which a single mistake can ruin you, that most candidates opt for safe, pre-digested, previously-tested, rhetoric instead of soaring prose.
There are always exceptions and these exceptions always wow the crowd. But then what?
The Democratic Six Pack - - and the number will probably grow by one or two in coming weeks - - is not strong on oratory. All are capable of delivering a decent speech, and all will probably get better as the campaign progresses.
But as the Democrats showed Tuesday night when they addressed a NARAL Pro-Choice America dinner celebrating the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, there are two among them who can actually rouse a crowd.
They are Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, who is a very long shot to win the nomination, and Al Sharpton, civil rights leader, who could probably win the nomination only in some alternate universe.
It is a phenomenon the Republicans experienced in 1996 and 2000 with Alan Keyes. He was always the best speaker, he always wowed the crowd, he never failed to impress and he had no chance of getting the nomination.
So what are the rest of the Democrats to do? Just watch Dean and Sharpton blow them away on the stump?
Probably. Or they could refuse to show up at too many more of these group dinners. (Dick Gephardt has already turned one down in New Hampshire in February.)
“Both Dean and Sharpton completely pander in every speech they give,” a political operative for a competing campaign said, “especially Dean. He goes to the left and excites the base. But that makes it very hard for him to win a general election.”
Dean, of course, is not worried about a general election. He would be daffy with delight if he managed to win the nomination.
But what the operative was saying is that candidates with no hope of winning can afford to be reckless and candidates who may have to face George W. Bush or even govern cannot be.
“In order to get nominated and elected, you have to demonstrate a broader reach than either Dean or Sharpton,” the operative said. “Sharpton is very entertaining, a motivating speaker. But is he as intense as Jesse Jackson was? Will he really do well with Southern blacks?”
The operative thinks - - hopes - - he will not.
As I said, there are more candidates due to get in the race, a number of them being encouraged by Donna Brazile, the grassroots organizer extraordinaire of the Democratic Party.
Brazile is encouraging African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and others to run in the primaries as “favorite sons”, get delegates, make demands at the convention, and then run on their own for the Senate, House or governor, etc., in future elections.
“This party needs revival,” she told me Tuesday night after listening to the Six Pack. “We need to bring new voters into this process. I don’t care if the other candidates are angry with me. Four have called me already. But I am an inciter; I am an agitator. ”
So what does she think of those already running, including the crowd-pleasing Sharpton and Dean?
“No vision,” she said. “No vision. This party is running on an empty.”
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 20, 2003
WASHINGTON - - It is truly said that right outside Washington there is a place called America, and for the 25 or so national political writers who ventured to Iowa last weekend, they got a dose of heightened reality.
They came to Marion, Iowa - - which sounds like it should be a bucolic hamlet, but instead is a charmless suburb of Cedar Rapids - - to hear three Democratic presidential candidates speak to a crowd of about 300.
The speeches by Howard Dean, John Kerry and Dick Gephardt were all pretty good. The three drew their loudest applause and longest standing ovations when they attacked President Bush’s policy on war with Iraq.
(Which led me to wonder why these guys didn’t stay in Washington and address the 25,000 or so anti-war demonstrators who showed up there. When I asked Kerry, who organized mass protests against the Vietnam War when he returned from military service there, he said that he hadn’t been invited, probably because he voted for the Senate resolution to support President Bush in dealing with Saddam Hussein.)
But for me, the real news that I got from talking to voters in Iowa was threefold: how little enthusiasm there seems to be for Dick Gephardt, how Kerry is doing better than expected, and why Joe Lieberman might want to skip the state entirely.
First, Gephardt: The current media story line is that three candidates have “must-win” obligations in the first three states on the 2004 primary election calendar. Call it the Good Neighbors policy. Gephardt, who comes from neighboring Missouri, must win Iowa. Kerry, who comes from neighboring Massachusetts, must win New Hampshire, and John Edwards, who comes from neighboring North Carolina, must win South Carolina.
What happens if they don’t? Well, if they have money, nothing. They can keep running and trying to win elsewhere. But the media will declare them “in trouble” and candidates in trouble always have difficulty raising funds.
Dick Gephardt, who won Iowa in 1988, should be a prohibitive favorite there, but it is hard to find much enthusiasm for his candidacy. People like him, people respect him, but I found very few people saying they were going to vote for him.
In typical Iowa fashion, I interviewed a woman at a Democratic Party reception in Des Moines, and when I got home, I already had an e-mail from her following up on our conversation.
Her name is Pat Brown and when she backs a candidate, she gathers money and votes for him. (The day after her husband died last year, she went ahead with a previously scheduled political fundraiser.)
“Gephardt was mashed potatoes in this last election,” she said in her e-mail. “I was furious. Now maybe there is some political strategy that I missed, but he sure as hell was no ball of fire and certainly didn't provide inspired leadership and
campaigning to elect Democrats.”
Brown is backing Kerry, who wowed both locals and the national press when he gave a speech on Saturday morning in Des Moines with the temperature at 26 degrees and snow falling and drew about 600 people.
That is a lot of people for Iowa and a very lot of people one year before the Iowa caucuses.
It is often said in politics that it is better to have a wrong strategy than to have no strategy at all (the Bob Dole 1996 presidential campaign is a good example of a no-strategy campaign) and Kerry has adopted the strategy of a national front-runner: He intends to win every contest he enters. He intends to beat Dick Gephardt Iowa, go on to New Hampshire eight days later and win there and then use his victories and status as the only combat veteran in the race to beat John Edwards in South Carolina, which has a lot of veterans.
But where does this leave Joe Lieberman, the Democrat currently leading in the national polls?
“Lieberman says he will compete in Iowa, but that’s insane,” says David Axelrod, a political consultant who knows Iowa well. “He would do better to plant himself in New Hampshire. I wouldn’t compete in Iowa”
Pat Brown’s nephew is working for Lieberman and she likes Lieberman, but she doesn’t think he has the horses to pull himself across the finish line. “I don't think he has the charisma to carry the country,” she says.
Howard Dean does have charisma, but it is the kind that appeals to college-educated, relatively well-to-do voters. He wowed the crowd in Marion on Saturday, but how well he can do on the farms and in the factories remains to be seen.