Election Contest

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
Sept. 21, 2004

ELECTION CONTEST

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in the world of politics, every election seems to test the bottom when it comes to mudslinging. I am afraid this year's election contest is no exception, and it is plummeting hitherto uncharted depths.

Some of the things that have been said on both sides I am sure on reflection are going to be the source of some embarrassment, and some of the actions taken by both campaigns will be regretted in the future. But there is one particular element in this debate in the Presidential campaign that I find particularly bothersome. It relates to statements that have been made by Vice President Cheney, by the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, and by Members of the Senate, and others, relative to the patriotism of candidates for office and relative to questions as to whether the American people, by casting their vote one way or the other on November 2, are somehow inviting terrorism to strike America.

Vice President Cheney, at a political rally in Des Moines, IA, Tuesday, September 7, said:

It's absolutely essential that 8 weeks from today, on November 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States. And we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mindset, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we're not really at war.

This quote by the Vice President received a lot of attention. The clear suggestion by the Vice President is that if the American people should not vote for President Bush, they are inviting a terrorist attack. That is an outrageous statement. I think it is one that, frankly, Vice President Cheney on reflection might not have made. Would it be appropriate to argue that since the terrorists attacked the United States while he was serving as Vice President, they saw weakness in the Bush-Cheney administration? I would not make that preposterous charge. I do not believe anyone can. And yet here we have the Vice President suggesting that if you do not vote to reelect President Bush, you are inviting a terrorist attack on the United States.

Just last Saturday in DeKalb, IL, the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, was quoted as saying:

I don't have data or intelligence to tell me one thing or another, (but) I would think they would be more apt to go (for) somebody who would file a lawsuit with the World Court or something rather than respond with troops.

Speaker Hastert said that of John Kerry.

Asked by reporters whether he believed al-Qaida could operate better with KERRY in the White House, HASTERT replied:

That's my opinion, yes.

I think this is a new low in American politics. For us to suggest that either major political party would field a candidate who would in any way knowingly or unknowingly compromise the security and safety of the United States I believe is a charge that must be backed up with solid evidence if it is ever going to be leveled. In this case, Speaker Hastert said, "I don't have data or intelligence to tell me one thing or another. . . ."

The reason I believe this is important is that when we reach the point in a campaign when the Vice President suggests that a vote for John Kerry invites a terrorist attack on our country, and the Speaker of the House, after acknowledging he has no information to support his statement, joins Mr. Cheney with the chorus of "vote for Bush or die," not to be outdone-and let me make it clear, I put "vote for Bush or die" in quotes. That is my statement. I am not attributing that to either of those individuals. So we have a situation where this has become a standard charge in the campaign at the highest levels.

There was a time in American politics when people were circumspect about even raising the issue of the fact that the former Governor of Illinois, Adlai Stevenson, had been divorced. In the 1950s, it was not really considered to be appropriate to raise that in the national debate, although there were certainly a lot of rumors and murmuring in the background.

Now we see the debate on the Presidential level reaching what I think are new depths, where at the highest levels questions are being raised as to whether John Kerry would, in fact, defend the United States against a terrorist attack. I think that is a troubling development.

These are not the only statements that have been made. This morning on the Fox News Channel one of my colleagues, whom I work with on a regular basis, Senator Hatch of Utah, raised the same issue. Others have as well.

We saw in the debate last Saturday where John Thune, a former Congressman of South Dakota, was debating Senator TOM DASCHLE, the Democratic minority leader. In the course of their debate, he argued that the fact TOM DASCHLE had been critical of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq "emboldened the enemy." John Thune said that TOM DASCHLE'S words emboldened the enemy.

What we have reached is the point where any criticism of our foreign policy leads to the charge that we are not being patriotic, leads to the charge that we would not stand up to defend America, and leads to the charge that in some respects the terrorists would be emboldened by those comments and our troops would be demoralized.

So what does that tell us? If Members of the Senate on either side of the aisle stand up and are critical of our policy in Iraq, are they to be targeted then as somehow selling out America, somehow guilty of traitorous comments? That is what we can draw from these comments made by Republican leaders as well as Republican candidates.

Yet Senator Harkin made a statement earlier in the day which noted the obvious. Even Republican Senators are being critical today of our policy in Iraq. This last Sunday, Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican of Nebraska, said, in reference to Iraq: The fact is, we are in trouble. We are in deep trouble in Iraq.

Do we embolden the enemy by being critical of our policy in Iraq? I do not think so. I think it is part of the normal political discourse which one expects in a democracy.

Similarly, Senator RICHARD LUGAR, the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, a friend of mine and colleague from the State of Indiana, criticized what he called the incompetence in the administration that has resulted in the failed Iraq reconstruction effort.

Does he embolden the enemy, demoralize the troops, by pointing out these shortcomings in American foreign policy? He is a Republican Senator. I have not heard Vice President Cheney or any others criticize Senators such as Lugar or Hagel for making these comments.

Senator John McCain said recently: We are not winning. Senator Lindsey Graham said that we need to be "more honest about how difficult it will be" in Iraq.

The list goes on, and the list tells me that Senators of good conscience on both sides of the aisle feel an obligation to disagree with the President on foreign policy when they have an honest disagreement and to suggest that changes in foreign policy or changes in military policy are important for the security of America.

I do not know if Vice President Cheney or the Speaker of the House would criticize the fact I have been openly critical of some of the military decisions that have been made since the invasion of Iraq. When a man comes into my office and tells me his son is a military policeman in Iraq and because he cannot be issued body armor he and his wife were raising money at home to buy the body armor and send it to their son, I came to the floor to criticize that. Of the billions of dollars we have sent in preparation for this war, one would think it obvious that body armor would be one of the first things issued to our soldiers. In this case, it was not.

I was critical of the administration, critical of our policies, critical of foreign policy and military policy. Would Vice President Cheney argue that I am giving comfort to the enemy by suggesting that? I certainly hope not.

When we found that our Humvees were sitting targets for homemade bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, that we had been remiss in failing to equip our Humvees in Iraq with armor plating on the sides to protect our soldiers, many of us came to the floor and made that point, wrote letters to the administration, forced a change in policy, which resulted in more and more of these Humvees being reconstructed, refit with armor to protect the troops.

Does the fact we were critical of the administration raise some question as to whether we are demoralizing the troops? Exactly the opposite occurred. When the Humvees arrived with the armor, our troops' morale went up. They had a chance to survive the attack. They did not have it before.

So Members of Congress-from Senator Kerry, through Republican and Democratic Senators alike-have a moral obligation to raise those issues where they disagree with this administration on foreign policy or military policy, whether they are on the Republican side of the aisle or the Democratic side of the aisle. This debate which we have seen disintegrate and descend to the levels that I have referred to needs to come to an end.

This is not the first time those in the highest levels of political office in Washington have questioned the patriotism of others in political office, have questioned whether they have the national security of America paramount in their mind. The same thing occurred in the 1950s. A Republican Senator from Wisconsin named Joe McCarthy went about throwing charges at people right and left that they were not loyal to America; that they were, in fact, communist. He destroyed a lot of people. He destroyed a lot of careers in the process.

There came a time in the course of the Army hearings with Senator McCarthy where finally one voice spoke out. That voice turned to Senator McCarthy and said: Have you no shame?

The same question needs to be asked of those who are throwing around so loosely these charges that either John Kerry, John Edwards, or Tom Daschle do not have the best interests of the United States at heart in everything that they do.

I disagree many times with my colleagues on the floor when it comes to foreign policy, military policy, and many other issues. Yet I have never and will never ever question their patriotism. I believe that is beyond the pale of ordinary political discourse. It has now become common conversation in this Presidential campaign.

On November 2, the voters will have the opportunity to ask the candidates who use these low tactics, Have you no shame?

I yield the floor.