If you've been reading liberal blogs and websites over the past couple of days, you've undoubtedly noticed quite a bit of outrage and hand wringing over Condoleeza Rice's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings for her nomination to the cabinet position of Secretary of State.
I certainly understand that we live in an increasingly polarized society, and I lay much of the blame for that at the feet of the Republican party. I draw the line, however, when I read people criticizing Barack Obama for daring to vote to confirm Rice and indicate that he hopes for her success.
More after the break.
I am a big believer in perspective. Senator Obama is one of the party's brightest rising stars, and he catapulted to that position, at least in part, by virtue of a shiningly optimistic speech at the Democratic National Convention. In that speech, he stressed the importance of being an American. An
American, not a partisan. Is it any surprise to anyone that in his vote and his comments, he expressed the same type of theme?
Echoing Senator Obama, I would hope, and in fact, I honestly believe, that the vast majority of Democrats does want to see Rice succeed in her job, which is centered on diplomacy, and hopefully the use of diplomacy in place of force. For that matter, I would hope and I honestly believe that the vast majority of Democrats does want to see the U.S. succeed in fostering a stable democracy in Iraq, however flawed -- and horribly, horribly flawed it was -- the initial decision to invade (which I opposed and marched against) may have been.
Also in terms of perspective, please recall that most Presidents get the cabinet they want. For example, here is a series of votes (thanks to DUer Rowdyboy for compiling it) for President Clinton's nominations:
Dan Glickman 94-0
William Daley 95-2
Bill Perry 97-0
Janet Reno 98-0
Andrew Cuomo 99-0
Madeline Albright 95-0
Bill Cohen 99-0
Alexis Herman 85-13
Federico Pena 99-1
Mike Espy Unanimous Consent
Ron Brown U.C.
Robert Reich U.C.
Bruce Babbitt U.C.
Henry Cisneros U.C.
Dick Riley U.C.
Hazel O'Leary U.C.
Donna Shalala U.C.
Jesse Brown U.C.
Carol Browner U.C.
Bill Richardson Voice Vote (Unanimous)
Les Aspin V.V. (U)
Warren Christopher V.V. (U)
Togo West V.V. (U)
We are an opposition party, the Republicans effectively control all three branches of government. Like many here, I believe being the opposition party does mean that you actually have to oppose, that you have to act like the opposition.
That said, we should not just oppose capriciously, we should not oppose everything, and we should not oppose everything that we ultimately do elect to oppose to the same degree. We still need to pick and choose our battles. We still need to fight intelligently, precisely because we are the opposition party.
Presidents typically get the cabinets they want, and Rice is (somewhat inexplicably to me) relatively well thought of by the general public. And while I can think of many, many, many better candidates, I can also think of many worse candidates that Bush could have chosen.
What do people want? A filibuster when it comes to the floor? Tactics like those make no sense to me, because even if we "win" and the nomination is withdrawn, Bush just throws up another neocon, someone just as bad or worse than Rice, and we lose the political capital that we spend in such a high-profile battle.
Better to pick and choose our fights, and use the filibuster when it matters: on key judicial nominations, on Social Security, on critical appropriations bills. These committee hearings were a foregone conclusion, the Republicans control the committee and they have the votes to ram through whoever they want. We accomplished what we needed to do, in that we pointedly questioned Rice and raised concerns and issues about Iraq and other areas of foreign policy where our positions differ dramatically from the Bush Administration's.
That having been done, I see no reason or need to pillory our elected Democrats who ultimately chose to vote to confirm Rice in what, again, has always been a foregone conclusion. Maybe some of those Democrats didn't want to be seen as obstructionists (which is exactly how the whorish MSM undoubtedly would have portrayed such a fight). Maybe some of those Democrats wanted to be sensitive to the concerns of some of their black and/or women constituents. Maybe some of them were just being optimists, like Senator Obama. Who knows what their motivations were, perhaps it was several of the above, or none of them.
Regardless, I'm not going to set my flamethrower on high, not for this. I'm not going to roast people who I want to stand up for me in battles that really do count, where we really can win. We have criticized the "with us or against us" Bush refrain, but toward our own elected officials, we sometimes display little tolerance.
I just don't care all that much about Rice, who is going to carry out the wishes of her boss, just like any Secretary of State would do. Yes, she's slimy, yes, she's probably a liar, and yes, she's screwed things up royally.
Welcome to the Bush Administration.
DTH