All Things Reconsidered
May 15, 2003
by Alexander Washburn

Gephardt: Reloaded

Fawning over the performance of George Stephanopulous seemed to be the overwhelming story coming out of South Carolina last week after the 9-person field for the Democratic nomination held their first debate. Yes, in case you were wondering, the words 'racial' and 'polarizing' where uttered, and surprise, they were directed at Al Sharpton. Guess those pre-debate rumors of former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun and Rep. Dennis Kucinnich doing Jell-O shots were greatly exaggerated. John Kerry, clearly showing the effects of too many sit-downs with Bob Shrum and Chris Lehane, went on the attack – directing his ire at the frontrunner and most exciting Democrat in the race, Gov. Howard Dean. Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz recently announced that the oft-mentioned Heinz family fortune would not be used unless Kerry gets attacked. Thinly veiled. The way Kerry is swinging with the gloves off in May just think of what will be coming out of his mouth in November. With Shrum and Lehane twisting words and creating facts along the way, its certain that Kerry's opponents are going to have to return fire – if only just to set the record straight. Put the bucks on the table now Teresa, and spare us the clean campaign rhetoric.

Senator from GQ John Edwards showed once again why he is the makings of his own imagination and a few writers dreaming of becoming the next Joe Klein. Stealing from the Karl Rove playbook, Edwards attacked Rep. Dick Gephardt's health care plan as a "tax increase" saying it would funnel one trillion dollars to corporate employers, even going as far as describing the policy as being "in good hands with Enron." Thankfully for Edwards, some opposition researcher checked that he didn't take Enron money. But where the research succeeded the policy failed, for Edwards, like all the candidates, have no policy proposals as bold and as timely as Gephardt's. In fact, Edwards was so devoid of policy proposals and clear specifics that it lead the Washington Post to write: "If the knock on you is that you are a pretty boy lightweight, perhaps you should focus on the details of what you would do to make America a better place... In the moments after the debate, some of the journalist on hand had no idea what he had talked about, beyond the attack on Gephardt’s health care plan and his humble roots."

For the record, the health care plan put forth by Rep. Dick Gephardt is not a tax increase, nor is repealing the tax cuts of 2001. Funny how Democrats are crying about the deficit but few say anything about repealing what led us to this massive deficit: the Bush tax cuts. Gephardt's plan addresses a crisis in this country where 41.2 million people remain uninsured, 55% of them, full-time workers with dependants. The plan phases in a new, targeted and refundable tax credit for employers to expand their health insurance to cover all of their employees. Geppie's plan creates no new bureaucracy by utilizing the existing system of health insurance financing. We're not talking Hillary Care here people.

Gephardt is a political veteran, having run for President once before and leading the Democrats through countless campaign and legislative battles. Along the way, he has made friends in the right places. The loyalist and unionist who turned out for Al Gore in the 2000 Iowa Caucus will do the same for Gephardt in 2004. He doesn't need to win, place or show in New Hampshire – a middle of the pack fifth is suffice. Next up on Feb. 3rd is the South Carolina primary and as Robert Novak smartly pointed out in his syndicated column, Gephardt has the inside track to Rep. James Clyburn's, South Carolina's only African-American in Congress, key endorsement. African-Americans are predicted to make up 40-50 percent of the Democratic primary vote and snagging this endorsement will go along way toward influencing that loyal Clyburn constituency. After South Carolina, the primary heads to Michigan, where Gephardt's lifetime of fighting the pro-labor fights are sure to help propel him to victory. Still not sure Gephardt can snag the nomination, perhaps you need to "Free your Mind."

Campaign of Ideas

Florida Senator Bob Graham entered the vice presidential sweeps last week. Graham, a popular Senator and former governor doesn't really believe that he can win the White House but hopes that being from Florida he can get a ride on the ticket. Graham would make a logical choice for anyone running except Sen. Joe Lieberman, who won't exactly be hurting for votes in Florida. Graham has much more to offer the Democratic Party than the state of Florida. Graham is the first candidate to raise some serious questions about the country's intelligence capabilities.

As I write this, I believe this to be true, but it is from the New York Times so you never know. (And don't think for a second that the Bush White House isn't laughing its ass off at the Times fall from grace.) Finally after weeding through brain-dead submissions from Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, something in Sunday's 'Week in Review' section was newsworthy and sensible. In an article entitled: "The Impossible Task for America’s Spies," William J. Broad not only highlights the incompetence of our intelligence agency alphabet soup, but also reveals new arguments that the Bush administration wanted war with Iraq at any cost. The Times writes: "The administration claimed that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger for atom bombs, claims that were based on forged documents. The new twist is that the administration investigated the documents more than a year ago and was told they were bogus. For example, a Niger minister whose signature was on one document had been out of office for more than a decade. 'We went to war predicated on a serious manipulation of intelligence,' said a person close to the administration's Niger investigation."

Intelligence failures are not just for the liberal-centrist/high-brow elitist New York Times readers anymore. On the far-right side, Pat Buchanan has been spewing his usual hate but this time toward the Bush administration via the intelligence agencies. Buchanan is convinced that the CIA sold Bush a bad bill of goods in Iraq and has taken it to the McLaughlin Group to make his case. The bad intelligence in Iraq is not the only high profile and costly failure. We knew nothing about North Korea's nuclear capability, nothing of missing Nukes from the former Soviet Union and just last week a top GOP donor was accused of spying for the Chinese since the Reagan years. In fact, the only successful spying our intelligence agencies have waged happens to be on American citizens through the Patriot Act, and calling for reforms of the CIA, FBI and others, is a perfect backdoor attempt to call into the wisdom and legality of that Ashcroft-loved law.

Graham is wasting no time creating a drumbeat for reform of our intelligence agencies. Graham is already accusing the Bush administration of attempting to cover-up parts of an inflammatory report about the 9/11 attacks. Graham says the report shows "failures of the government to prevent the terror attacks." Graham, who is a top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee is not just making this stuff up and came strong at the Bush administration, plainly saying: "I think what they're shooting at is to cover up the failures." What a perfect job for a Vice President in a new administration, leading the reforms of the nation's intelligence. It sure beats Reinventing Government – the task that Vice President Al Gore had. But it falls short of directing former colleagues to multi-billion dollar taxpayer funded government contracts – which seems to be Mr. Cheney's specialty.

(Alexander Washburn is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine.)