Stalwarts Fought Drug Bill 'Til Dawn

"This is the story of how a small band of committed conservatives stood up to enormous political pressure and almost defeated a massive new entitlement program proposed by their own party.

Around 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, November 22, Republican Representatives John Shadegg (Ariz.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Mike Pence (Ind.), Trent Franks (Ariz.), and Butch Otter (Idaho), all opponents of the bill, were huddled outside the House chamber. The GOP leadership told them that if the bill were defeated, Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) would bring up either the same bill again or, amazingly, a Democratic package twice as costly. That proposal, they were told, already had the 218 votes needed to pass.

Worse, they were also told, President Bush was behind the plan, and would sign the Democratic bill if it reached his desk.

Knowing that President Bush has never vetoed a bill, the conservatives were shocked by this appalling threat"

"Other conservatives held firm under enormous pressure, most notably retiring Rep. Nick Smith (R.-Mich.), whose son Brad hopes to win his safe 7th District seat in a crowded Republican primary (see "Politics 2003").

Smith told HUMAN EVENTS he was told his son would get "almost unlimited financial support, plus some nationally recognized names to endorse him," if Smith voted for the drug bill. "This comes after [Brad] had sold part of his property to put his own $100,000 into his campaign," said Smith.

But his son told him, said Smith, "'Hey, Dad, you stick to your guns and do the right thing. I don't want to go to Congress that way.'" Smith didn't waver.

"The only sad part is that I may have hurt Brad's chances of getting in, because some of the members were pretty adamant that they were going to work to make sure he didn't," said Smith. "I thought that after 20 years in elected office, I knew what arm-twisting was. This was pretty aggressive arm-twisting."

Smith refused to name names, but other sources confirmed a report by columnist Bob Novak that Rep. Duke Cunningham (R.-Calif.) had taunted Smith after the vote—waving his checkbook and promising to donate to Brad Smith's primary opponents.

Rep. Walter Jones (R.-N.C.) told HUMAN EVENTS he would rather resign from Congress than support the costly new federal entitlement program.

"[Chief GOP Deputy Whip] Eric Cantor [R.-Va.] did approach me on the floor and asked me if I would vote for the Medicare package," said Jones. "And I said, 'If the Good Lord came down and asked me, I'd say no.'"

“Attacking” President Bush

November 27, 2003
“Some are attacking the president for attacking the terrorists,” says a new Republican TV ad for President Bush.

In its verbal sloppiness, this message is fully worthy of the president himself. Of course nobody is “attacking” him in the same sense that he is “attacking the terrorists,” with real bullets and bombs. Various people are criticizing him, some with measured language, some with verbal abuse, but all of them are well within the limits of the “freedom” and “democracy” he says he wants to promote around the world.

So why does he allow and encourage his subordinates to imply that his political opponents are on the side of the terrorists?

Nobody knows what Bush means by freedom and democracy, which he seems to equate with each other. In his mouth these terms sound like mere slogans, with no precise significance. He uses them the way Madison Avenue uses advertising jingles, to excite stock responses.

It must be said that his speeches sometimes contain thoughtful reflections, but these are hardly typical of him. It’s as if his speechwriters are doing their conscientious best to supply philosophical justifications for his policies, almost in spite of him. Like most politicians, the man himself is most comfortable with cliché.

Time magazine notes that Americans tend to feel strongly about George W. Bush. There are “those who regard Bush as the very ideal of American presidential leadership and those who regard him as an embarrassing and dangerous usurper.”

Both reactions show a lack of proportion. Bush isn’t a monster, just a mediocrity. If he didn’t just happen to be the most powerful man on earth, nobody would bother deflating him. But his elevation to the presidency has elicited the most preposterous flattery. One columnist hails him as “a statesman of vision and remarkable courage ... a born-again idealist ... a strategic pioneer ... our most decisive president since Harry Truman,” et cetera.

Funny that nobody noticed all these rare qualities when Bush was stumbling and fumbling his way through the 2000 primaries. He didn’t even outshine his humdrum Republican opponents; in fact it was John McCain who impressed people then (don’t ask me why).

But power has its magic. As King Lear says, “Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar? And the creature run from the cur? There thou might’st behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.” Hamlet likewise remarks, “My uncle is king of Denmark, and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little.”

Henry Kissinger put it wittily: “The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it’s their fault.” And the president of the United States is ex officio the world’s greatest celebrity, even if he’s Jerry Ford.

Jerry Ford! We’d nearly forgotten him! And he’s still alive, even though he was literally attacked twice, both times by women! One of the would-be assassins was Squeaky Fromme, former member of the Charles Manson gang, but I can’t recall the other one’s name.

Jerry Ford! Now there was a real live wire! Nobody ever pretended that he was anything but a dull man. The only time he ever created the least excitement was when he beaned someone with a golf ball. You marveled that anyone would feel strongly enough about him, one way or the other, to shoot at him.

Ford was Bush’s mental peer, but since he didn’t have an army of neoconservative pundits likening him to Newton and Spinoza, it was never necessary to cut him down to size. If you’d put a whoopee cushion on his chair, you’d probably have to explain the joke to him.

Ford was, and is, an unanswerable refutation of the notion that only an extraordinary man, for good or evil, can achieve the presidency; either a man of heroically worthy qualities or a villain “by merit rais’d to that bad eminence.”

Maybe we should resign ourselves to the unflattering truth: our political system isn’t hospitable to men of stature. If a Thomas Jefferson should seek public office today, he wouldn’t get far. Our system would weed him out early.

Rep. Walter Jones (R.-N.C.) told HUMAN EVENTS he would rather resign from Congress than support the costly new federal entitlement program

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Thank God there's at least someone in Congress from the state of North Carolina that hasn't sold out conservative principle. We had a chance in 2002 to put a conservative in the Senate but rather we got the Seatbelt Senator. I just hope Burr, if he is the candidate, won't look to the White House before taking a breath in the morning. Unfortunately later in the article I come to read this

Meanwhile, Republican Representatives Richard Burr (N.C.)—a 2004 Senate candidate—Steve Buyer (Ind.), and James Sensenbrenner (Wis.) who voted against the bill in June, voted for it this time. And Rep. Ernest Istook (R.-Okla.) switched in the middle of the voting period from "no" to "yes." All four Republicans gave the same explanation as Franks and Otter: They had been persuaded to believe that their President would actually sign an even worse bill.

Looks like another Republican just lost my vote. Who's in the primary with Burr? Or is this just going to be another repeat of 2002 where our candidate was chosen for us? And it just 'warms' my heart to know the President would be willing to sign an even more expensive bill....

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