The Wage Slave Journal

The Wage Slave Journal

07/03/2003: A bitter American hero

If you haven't yet fully realized the depths to which Republicans can sink, read this Washington Post profile of former Georgia Senator Max Cleland.

Cleland was a surprise loser in the 2002 elections. He was beaten by Saxby Chambliss, who ran a campaign ad that used images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to accuse Cleland of failing to lead on the issue of homeland security.

The twist? As a young man, Cleland volunteered for service in Vietnam, where he lost two legs and his right hand. Chambliss took a student deferment.

Here's the whole story.

Not long after the September 11 attacks, it was Democrats -- not President Bush -- who proposed creating a new cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. The White House initially opposed the idea, worried that the head of the department would be accountable to Congress (as all cabinet members are), while the recently appointed homeland security "adviser" was not. The administration, through Tom Ridge, even threatened to veto the bill creating the department.

But it became clear very quickly that this was a political loser for the Bush administration, so it did a 180 and decided to support creating a homeland security cabinet post.

What followed was perhaps one of the most cunning and effective political maneuvers in American history, and it cost Max Cleland his Senate seat.

The White House didn't simply express support for the Democratic proposal. Instead it created its own proposal, very similar in terms of what departments would join the new agency, but different in one important respect: Bush's bill stripped many civil service protections from employees of the new agency.

Democrats, of course, opposed Bush's attempt to eliminate the hard-won protections for federal workers, largely because of the public employee unions' traditional support for the Democratic party. Congressional Republicans called vote after vote on the issue, forcing Democrats to vote against Bush's proposal even though they had originally come up with the idea. Bush won that battle, and in the final votes, most Democrats supported creating the new department.

But when election season rolled around, Republicans had a powerful new argument custom made for campaign ads. The Chambliss ad, for example, trumpeted that "since July, Max Cleland voted against President Bush's vital homeland security efforts 11 times!"

Max Cleland had helped to write the original legislation proposing a new Department of Homeland Security.

But Democrats lost the issue. No one remembered that it was their idea. President Bush looked strong on homeland security despite originally opposing the idea (and underfunding homeland security needs, something that continues to this day).

Cleland is teaching a class at American University. He seems to enjoy it, constantly joking with his students. He's engaged to be married. But he's still bitter about his loss, especially the infamous ad.

He should be bitter. We all should be. Republicans play in the gutter. They say and do whatever it takes to win, without a thought about honesty, decency, or honor.