Richard Gephardt knows. And what he knows scares him.
In a speech at the winter gathering of Democratic Party bigwigs, Gephardt struggled to reclaim some lost ground:
"We've got to stand together against terrorism," he exhorted. "This is no partisan issue. These young people in Afghanistan are not fighting for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. They're fighting for the greatest country that has ever existed on earth. That's the United States of America."
Gephardt knows he has to make this pitch because his colleagues in the leadership of the national party have dug a deep, deep hole, and the polling numbers are showing it. Bill Clinton is understood to have booted the war on terrorism, and the congressional Democrats are seen as obstructers and posers.
Four specifics dog the Democrats and make "me too" speeches like Gephardt's mandatory fare for the next few months.
First, the Washington Post peeled back the sorry record of the Clinton administration's paralysis in the face of a growing body of evidence that Osama bin Laden would target our homeland. The Democratic Party developed no leadership over a quarter century that would have been a voice for aggressive counter-strokes against international terror, so Clinton's tendency to split the political difference found its middle ground between indecision and wishful thinking. The result was tragic. It will be a long time before the country hears a Democrat talk tough on terror without at least a big dose of skepticism.
Then Slow Joe Biden ripped the administration's early conduct of the war and called for a "mano-a-mano" ground war with a commitment of ground troops for cosmetic reasons. The Democrats' senior spokesperson on foreign affairs doubled-down a week ago with some truly foolish remarks about "renting" Afghanistan for a while – exactly the sort of delegitimizing rhetoric that can brand a regime as a "puppet."
Then there is excitable Pat Leahy, Vermont's contribution to the war effort, who has defended his boycott on Bush judicial nominees as his right as chair of the Senate's Judiciary Committee. Never mind the war, and never mind the caliber of the nominees held hostage. Leahy's drunk on his own importance, and the cost to the national security bothers him not a bit, even when the chief justice of the United States is obliged to raise his voice in protest.
And Gephardt knows as well that the Daschle tantrum that killed the stimulus bill was quickly perceived by the country as a self-serving political stunt. American voters will not soon forget that Tom Daschle valued his position as leader of the Democrats and front-runner in 2004 more than he did an end to the recession and an extension in unemployment benefits. The House minority leader must have cringed when Sen. Kennedy wound up the old organ last week in praise of higher taxes as well. It's tough enough fooling the electorate in peacetime. It's practically impossible when we are at war.
Surrounded by fellow Democrats who are either weak in the head or weak on terrorism, Gephardt did the only thing that was left to him – he attacked the president's senior political aide Karl Rove for politicizing the war. The only trouble with the tactic is that the American people already know the real score, and Dick Gephardt knows they know.
On the surface, the American people are resuming a normal demeanor. Even the release last week of five pictures of self-proclaimed suicide-mission types caused only a minor stir. We prefer not to ask whether they are five of five, five of 50, or five of 5,000. But we saw the story. It registered. We know that these are the most serious of times and will remain that way for years to come.
It is, in other words, a time for the adults to be in charge – the president, The vice president, the secretaries of state and defense, the attorney general and the national security advisor and the head of homeland defense. These are seven very steely folks, and the public approves of their approach and their competencies. Gephardt is trying to make people believe that both parties have such people.
And that, sadly, is not true.
On one side is Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice and Ridge.
On the other side is Biden, Leahy, Daschle, Kennedy and Gephardt.
Gephardt does not want such a comparison made. He calls that politicizing the war.
Many people call it survival. And I call it the only issue that matters in 2002 and for many years beyond.
I think Dick Gephardt knows this to be true. And that is why he spent so much time voicing vain thoughts to the contrary.