Politics and War – No,

Politics and War – No, not that war (the coming war with Iraq), this war (the one between Daschle/Democrats and the president over that war). ABC’s influential The Note says “today is likely to be about trying to determine the political impact of yesterday’s explosion.” What explosion? Why “Tom Daschle’s long bomb” accusing the president of politicizing the war.

I will leave it to others wiser than I to thrash this out, but while the Gore/Daschle/Democratic charges of making national security a political issue are being examined I thought a very short trip down memory lane might throw some helpful light on the subject. I refer to the last time Democrats in Congress were faced with what the Washington Post described as “one of the most important votes they will ever cast in their careers.” War? Well, not exactly. It was the vote over whether “to open an inquiry of impeachment against a popular president from their own party.” (For Minority Leader, A Matter of Consensus; Inquiry Vote Tests Gephardt’s Skills, October 8, 1998, Section A, p. 18)

I know, I know. We’ve all “moved on” and “put that behind us.” Still, history’s there, and occasionally it can be enlightening. I was struck at the time (which is why I saved the reference) by the reverence and sense of gravity with which the House Minority Leader, Richard Gephardt, faced his grave Constitutional duty to determine whether high crimes and misdemeanors sufficient to justify removal of the president from office had been committed.

What guiding principle did Gephardt bring to this awesome and historic task?

“My first and prime responsibility is to the [House Democratic] caucus,” he said in an interview. “I want to get members elected and win more seats. That’s what they want to do, and that’s what they want me to do.”

UPDATE (27 Sept.) – Playing catch-up to Daschle and Gore, the once and wannabe Speaker has now added his discordant note to the current chorus of sanctimony. In an OpEd in today’s New York Times, Gephardt writes that

President Bush himself has decided to play politics with the safety and security of the American people…. This is not how a great nation should debate issues of war and peace.

Of course not. Playing politics should be limited to such pedestrian matters as deciding whether a president has committed impeachable offenses, where it is perfectly O.K. to adopt whatever position will most improve the prospects of House Democrats in an upcoming election.

Say What?