In politics, there is often a lot of empty preening about “speaking truth to power.” It’s an image that both the right and left would love to possess – the man or woman who, while scorned and ridiculed by the know-it-all elite, nevertheless comes to Washington and has the courage to proclaim that the emperor is wearing no clothes.
The late, very great actor Jimmy Stewart portrayed such a character in the role of Sen. Jeff Smith in Frank Capra’s classic film, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” As movie buffs remember, Sen. Smith was the hand-picked stooge of the party machine – a country rube who knew nothing about politics but everything about right and wrong. There is something in our democratic tradition that values an honest message no matter how eccentric the messenger. The image will endure as long as America.
This week, I would like to nominate Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., for a Sen. Jeff Smith award. Byrd, 85 years old, is also something of an eccentric, often scorned by the know-it-alls du jour – a relic from a bygone age, some insist, referring to Byrd’s flights of rhetoric that recall the days of Webster, Clay and Calhoun; a doddering old fool say others, someone who should step aside and make way for a younger person. Still others derisively call him Sen. Pork, after the countless projects his influence has brought to West Virginia, traditionally one of the hardest scrabble states in the Union.
Well this week Sen. Robert Byrd had the strength of character to take his stand in the Senate’s well, and declare what every other politician knows to be true but is afraid to say – that the Bush administration used “false premises” to trick the American people into supporting the war against Iraq. Moreover, he also accused Bush of something else which is common discussion over cocktails in this town but which nobody has the courage to say publicly. “There is ample evidence that the horrific events of Sept. 11 have been carefully managed,” Byrd declared, “to switch public focus from Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, who masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks, to Saddam Hussein who did not.”
Sen. Byrd went full tilt. He termed the Bush administration’s talk of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction – of which none have been found – “embarrassing.” He asked important questions which many conservatives, still swaggering from the flush of victory, have not only refused to ask, but have ridiculed others for asking: “Were our troops needlessly put at risk? Were countless Iraq civilians killed and maimed when it wasn’t really necessary? Was the American public deliberately misled? Was the world?”
This was no overpaid Hollywood loudmouth confusing his box-office draw with political wisdom and it was certainly no shrill partisan attack. Sen. Byrd was harshly critical of his fellow Democrats who, he noted, were perhaps too afraid to ask the tough questions about Bush administration policy – how long will U.S. forces have to remain in Iraq, and what will be the cost?
This was pure Sen. Robert Byrd, a man too old to care about running for president; a man too beloved by his own voters to ever have to worry about re-election (and a man who has every prospect of out-serving the recently retired record-setter Strom Thurmond); a man who, in short, is the type of senator the Founding Fathers envisioned when they wrote the Constitution … disinterested, deliberate and devoted. There may be a 1,001 things to disagree with Sen. Byrd about, but questioning his sincerity or his experience aren’t numbered among them.
Presently, many of the Democrats who aren’t disinterested – particularly those currently pandering to the temporary warlike mood of the public – haven’t found the courage to ask Bush tough, basic questions. Like Lieberman, they sit on the sidelines, support the war when it’s popular, snipe at Bush when he has a bad week in Iraq; or like John Kerry, guessing his stand on the war is like picking petals off daisies – he supports it, he supports it not, etc.
But in the tradition of the Hebrew Prophets, who also came to speak truth to power and just as often wound up martyrs, Sen. Robert Byrd comes to us with a message that many don’t want to hear. Some will drown him out with ridicule; others will call him disloyal because his disturbing questions, coming from the loyal opposition’s most senior member, are annoying. But as with Israel of old, we ignore his counsel at our peril.
Sen. Byrd may have come to Washington a long time ago, but his voice is as fresh today as the fictional Sen. Jeff Smith’s ever was.
