AN ISSUE SO IMPORTANT IT SHOULDN'T BE DEBATED:

Democrats Question Iraq Timing: Talk of War Distracts From Election Issues (Dana Milbank, September 16, 2002, Washington Post)

Though Bush is likely to win broad congressional support after Thursday's well-received speech, the hardball politics he exhibited Friday may cause doubts among would-be allies about the purity of his motives. Democrats contrasted Bush's stance with his father's decision 12 years ago to postpone a vote on hostilities with Iraq until after midterm elections.

Democratic leaders, though cautious in their public remarks, have voiced concerns. "I would say that the concerns we have about the politicization of this whole issue are ones that still exist," Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said Thursday. "I don't think that they ought to be minimized, and I think we'd have to work very hard not to politicize this series of questions and this deliberation."

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) had similar worries. "Some issues are so serious, so important to the United States, that they should be taken as far out of the realm of politics as possible," Biden said. "This is one of those issues."

Earlier, former president Bill Clinton raised doubts, too. "We know [al Qaeda members] still have a terrorist network around the world," he said. "And we're already kind of changing the subject here, looking at Saddam Hussein, who's not going anywhere."

Bush aides angrily reject the accusation of a "Wag the Dog" attempt, after a Hollywood film that depicted a phony war to distract public attention from domestic trouble. "Even the suggestion that the timing of something so serious could be done for political reasons is reprehensible," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said, using the same description Vice President Cheney used earlier. "Iraq presents a serious problem, and it's being dealt with seriously."

Whatever the White House motive, the emergence of Iraq as an issue before the election has spooked Democrats, who find themselves struggling for a response. Though there is no consensus for handling the matter, party strategists said the likeliest course is for Democrats to agree to votes quickly on a resolution authorizing force against Hussein -- in hopes of getting back to domestic matters.

Democrats brought some of the difficulty on themselves, administration officials say. In July and August, when it appeared there were divisions within the administration about whether to involve Congress and the United Nations, Democrats clamored for a full debate on Iraq. As Fleischer put it: "The Democrats, to their credit, asked the president to make his case. He's doing what they asked him to do."

"The Democrats responded to what they perceived as administration confusion in July and August, but they did not think out the consequences," said Hudson Institute analyst Marshall Wittmann. In a "massive blunder," Democrats demanded exactly what they got from Bush: a debate on Iraq that diminishes Democrats' issues.

As Brian Hoffman, who sent this, wrote: "Some issues, LIKE THE MOST IMPORTANT REASON FOR THE STATE TO EXIST, ought to be taken entirely out of the hands of the people--and that is suddenly defined as democracy. Surely Biden will make an impressive Member of the European Parliament."
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 16, 2002 9:53 AM