Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat from Connecticut and the former running mate of Al Gore, has spoken out against the kind of bitter partisanship practiced by some Democrats recently and has proposed a special bi-partisan war council to provide advice and direction to the president, according to NewsMax.
"We can’t tolerate the kind of division that currently exists in our country,” Lieberman said. "Why are we fighting among those who have the same goals?”
Lieberman also confronted Democrats who question the president’s motives.
"It’s time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he’ll be commander-in-chief for three more years. We undermine the president’s credibility at our nation’s peril,” he warned.
Lieberman is absolutely right about the need for Americans to unify behind the President as much as humanly possible on matters of national security. While there is room for disagreement about strategy and matters of conscience, the overwhelming theme should be one of national unity when it comes to eliminating the scourge of terrorism in America and around the world.
I'm less sure about Lieberman's proposal for a war cabinet. Lieberman's "Bipartisan Victory in Iraq Administrative Group” would reportedly likely meet weekly to discuss conditions in Iraq and recommend policy.
The problem is that there are clearly some in Washington who would continue to place their own political advancement ahead of the nation's security. They would simply transfer their partisanship to the new cabinet. They would attempt to spin the headlines coming out of any such war cabinet for partisan political advantage -- the very thing Lieberman quite rightly wants to avoid.
We've seen a similar abuses in the case of members of the former 9-11 Commission, who took it upon themselves to give the administration a bunch of "D" and "F" grades earlier this week (Chicago Tribune). After the release of the "9/11 Commission Report" last year, the commission re-created itself as a privately funded "9/11 Public Discourse Project" focused on pressuring Congress and the Bush administration to adopt its recommended reforms. In other words, the 9-11 commission, once its duties were completed, refused to disband. Instead, it used the authority it was granted to extend its own lifespan, and then went on to "rubber stamp" its own unofficial reports with the "official" 9-11 Commission imprimatur.
While there is nothing wrong with monitoring whether national security recommendations are being implemented -- and indeed, it is important to do so -- the unofficial post-9-11 commission report was spun by the television media, among others, as evidence that the administration has failed in national security matters since 9-11. If that was the intended purpose of the report, it should never have been prepared.
The reality of the situation is that the United States has made many national security improvements since September 2001, yet still has many more security improvements to implement and is still at risk in some areas. (To some degree, national security enhancements will be a never-ending process because technology, and terrorists, will continue to evolve.)
Yet it also cannot be ignored that America has not had another major, successful terrorist attack on American soil since the September 11th attacks -- something that nobody could have confidently predicted four years ago. That warrants at least an overall passing grade of a "C." That a "F" grade was awarded -- or that the news media so successfully spun the report as an "F" report -- suggests that the primary agenda of the remnants of the 9-11 commission, or some in the media, has been to undermine the administration with which they disagree politically.
To reiterate, because it is important, there is nothing wrong with identifying areas where our homeland security is weak and proposing reasonable changes to strengthen our security. That is one of the most important things that Americans can do right now. But being vocal about the failures but weak on realistic solutions helps nobody and only serves to undermine our national security.
Returning to the subject of how the War Cabinet might be misused, if there are politicians who distrust the president and are seeking to undermine him, as Lieberman acknowledges, then those same fierce partisans will not disappear if a war cabinet is created. They will simply join the cabinet and attempt to undermine from within any support it is intended to give to the president in the war effort. That undermining the president in the war effort threatens the safety of all Americans, including themselves, is not their concern. They are like the scorpions in the well-known fable of the scorpion and the frog:
A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too."
The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"
Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature . . . ."
The challenge for the American people is to distinguish the scorpions from the frogs.
If we fail to identify those who are undermining America's national security -- which includes those who are undermining the people who are currently working to ensure our national security -- all Americans may end up suffering mightily together.
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More commentary at A Blog for All and PoliPundit
Tags: lieberman, joseph lieberman; war cabinet; national security
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