For good or ill, public life in America will henceforth not be the same. The last ten days have witnessed a remarkable exodus of newsmakers from the civic stage – Bernard Law, Henry Kissinger, Al Gore and Trent Lott. Mr. Lott, the Senate Republican leader, is not gone yet – not physically gone, but politically gone. It’s only a matter of time before the attendants come to remove the corpse.
Al Gore, the only one of the group to leave voluntarily, had enough insight to understand why he had to go. He will not run for election in 2004, he said, because elections are about the future and Mr. Gore’s past, particularly the election of 2000, is too great a burden to carry forward. The other three, Law, Kissinger and Lott, are just as burdened by their histories but seem unable to acknowledge the obvious. They go clanking into the night like the ghost of Jacob Marley, wearing the chains they forged in life, link by link and yard by yard.
Bernard Law spent two decades coddling pederasts and rapists and throwing their victims to the lawyers. Henry Kissinger’s chairmanship of the 9-11 investigation withered for lack of benefit of doubt, which no one was willing to extend him after a career of deceit and double-dealing in all hemispheres. Trent Lott was not destroyed by his centennial salutation to Strom Thurmond; those words were just the keys that unlocked the closet to reveal a klavern of racist skeletons. When Trent settles into his ignominious exile in Pascagoula, it will have been his long record of anti-civil rights voting that did him in.
The reason, the only reason Senate Republicans are keeping the grim cadaver around until January 6th is fear. The men who aspire to GOP leadership are hoping this mania for looking at voting records will have subsided by then or perhaps will be lost in the haze of seating the new Congress. Senators Nickles, Frist, Santorum and McConnell remember all too well that the storm of insincere righteousness that deposed House Speaker Newt Gingrich for extra-marital relations also swept away his successor, Bob Livingston, who was found to be extra-maritally related too.
The White House has been cautious in its comments on the Lott debacle, and with good reason. Before he became vice president or oil tycoon or defense secretary, Dick Cheney spent a decade as the lone congressional representative from Wyoming and as such compiled a voting record that makes Trent Lott seem Kennedyesque by comparison.
In 1987, Dick Cheney voted to sustain Ronald Reagan’s veto of the Civil Rights Restoration Act; he voted – 10 times – against imposing sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa and in 1986, Mr. Cheney voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela from prison.
Dick Cheney voted against the Equal Rights Amendment and was one of only 29 members of the House of Representatives to oppose the collection of statistics on hate crimes. Hate crimes, like the one that left his fellow Wyoming citizen Matthew Shepard hanging on a fence.
The Bush administration is occupied with immunizing military and hospital personnel against smallpox. Don’t know if Mr. Cheney weighed in on that policy, but in 1987, he was one of eight lawmakers to oppose the Federal Immunization Program and the National Health Service Corps – two programs aimed at protecting children’s health. Not satisfied with opposing children’s health care, Mr. Cheney also opposed feeding them. He voted against school lunch programs not once, not twice, but 10 times. You’re not alone kids, Uncle Dick was also one of eight representatives to oppose “Meals on Wheels” for those grasping, greedy shut-ins.
Well, maybe Dick Cheney is just a fiscal conservative. Of course, if he is fiscally conservative, why is he the first vice president to demand taxpayers subsidize his electric bill at the vice presidential mansion? Why did he consistently vote for every bloated military hardware program, even in the midst of the defense price gouging scandals of the 1980s? If perhaps, the reason is because he is solid in his support of the military, then why did he oppose funding the Veterans’ Administration on 10 separate occasions? Why was he one of only 41 Congressmen to oppose training and business loans for veterans?
The list goes on – crime, environment, health care, senior citizens. We only have a few minutes and sadly, this current accountability craze will probably burn out long before it reaches the West Wing.
For the Record
For good or ill, public life in America will henceforth not be the same. The last ten days have witnessed a remarkable exodus of newsmakers from the civic stage – Bernard Law, Henry Kissinger, Al Gore and Trent Lott. Mr. Lott, the Senate Republican leader, is not gone yet – not physically gone, but politically gone. It’s only a matter of time before the attendants come to remove the corpse.
Al Gore, the only one of the group to leave voluntarily, had enough insight to understand why he had to go. He will not run for election in 2004, he said, because elections are about the future and Mr. Gore’s past, particularly the election of 2000, is too great a burden to carry forward. The other three, Law, Kissinger and Lott, are just as burdened by their histories but seem unable to acknowledge the obvious. They go clanking into the night like the ghost of Jacob Marley, wearing the chains they forged in life, link by link and yard by yard.
Bernard Law spent two decades coddling pederasts and rapists and throwing their victims to the lawyers. Henry Kissinger’s chairmanship of the 9-11 investigation withered for lack of benefit of doubt, which no one was willing to extend him after a career of deceit and double-dealing in all hemispheres. Trent Lott was not destroyed by his centennial salutation to Strom Thurmond; those words were just the keys that unlocked the closet to reveal a klavern of racist skeletons. When Trent settles into his ignominious exile in Pascagoula, it will have been his long record of anti-civil rights voting that did him in.
The reason, the only reason Senate Republicans are keeping the grim cadaver around until January 6th is fear. The men who aspire to GOP leadership are hoping this mania for looking at voting records will have subsided by then or perhaps will be lost in the haze of seating the new Congress. Senators Nickles, Frist, Santorum and McConnell remember all too well that the storm of insincere righteousness that deposed House Speaker Newt Gingrich for extra-marital relations also swept away his successor, Bob Livingston, who was found to be extra-maritally related too.
The White House has been cautious in its comments on the Lott debacle, and with good reason. Before he became vice president or oil tycoon or defense secretary, Dick Cheney spent a decade as the lone congressional representative from Wyoming and as such compiled a voting record that makes Trent Lott seem Kennedyesque by comparison.
In 1987, Dick Cheney voted to sustain Ronald Reagan’s veto of the Civil Rights Restoration Act; he voted – 10 times – against imposing sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa and in 1986, Mr. Cheney voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela from prison.
Dick Cheney voted against the Equal Rights Amendment and was one of only 29 members of the House of Representatives to oppose the collection of statistics on hate crimes. Hate crimes, like the one that left his fellow Wyoming citizen Matthew Shepard hanging on a fence.
The Bush administration is occupied with immunizing military and hospital personnel against smallpox. Don’t know if Mr. Cheney weighed in on that policy, but in 1987, he was one of eight lawmakers to oppose the Federal Immunization Program and the National Health Service Corps – two programs aimed at protecting children’s health. Not satisfied with opposing children’s health care, Mr. Cheney also opposed feeding them. He voted against school lunch programs not once, not twice, but 10 times. You’re not alone kids, Uncle Dick was also one of eight representatives to oppose “Meals on Wheels” for those grasping, greedy shut-ins.
Well, maybe Dick Cheney is just a fiscal conservative. Of course, if he is fiscally conservative, why is he the first vice president to demand taxpayers subsidize his electric bill at the vice presidential mansion? Why did he consistently vote for every bloated military hardware program, even in the midst of the defense price gouging scandals of the 1980s? If perhaps, the reason is because he is solid in his support of the military, then why did he oppose funding the Veterans’ Administration on 10 separate occasions? Why was he one of only 41 Congressmen to oppose training and business loans for veterans?
The list goes on – crime, environment, health care, senior citizens. We only have a few minutes and sadly, this current accountability craze will probably burn out long before it reaches the West Wing.