I debated whether or not to say anything about this here. Criticizing Democrats is not something I want to get into a habit of doing here, nor do I wish for this to become my own personal soapbox. This is a community blog. So, I offer a disclaimer, in addition to the standard caveat, that this is my own opinion. I say these things not because I like Chuck Hagel or hate Ben Nelson. I will never vote for Hagel, and I do not regret my vote for Nelson. But I feel a duty when I see a member of my party - and the only elected Democrat in state or federal office in Nebraska - betraying what I feel the principles of the party stand for, that I must stand up and say so.
Being a “good Democrat” means certain things to certain people. Indeed, it means different things to many in this group. We have varying degrees of partisanship, but are generally all committed to the idea that Democrats have the right ideas. Which is why it pains me when a fellow Democrat gets things so remarkably and consistently wrong.
I dutifully voted for Ben Nelson for United States Senate this past year, motivated by a desire to see a Democratic Senate, and by the intolerable notion of a Senator Pete Ricketts. Fortunately, Nelson won, and the Democrats took the Senate. That Nelson won by such a large margin is too his credit, and speaks well to his record. It also provides him with an opportunity to take leadership in the United States Senate, and abandon an overly cautious approach. Nelson can afford to be a progressive - but, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that he wants to be one.
The line quoted in the title comes from Nelson’s Republican colleague in the Senate, Chuck Hagel. Hagel, voting in favor of the resolution he co-sponsored with Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Joe Biden (D-DE), gave a stirring speech to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
There is no strategy. This is a ping-pong game with American lives.
These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad are not beans. They’re real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we’re doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder. We better be as sure as you can be.
And I want every one of you, every one of us, 100 senators to look in that camera, and you tell your people back home what you think. Don’t hide anymore; none of us.
To other Republicans, Hagel said this:
“This is a very real, responsible, addressing of the most divisive issue in this country since Vietnam. Sure, it’s tough. Absolutely. And, I think, all 100 senators ought to be on the line on this. What do you believe? What are you willing to support? What do you think? Why were you elected? If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes.“
We can debate the merits of the resolution all we want - whether it will actually accomplish anything is doubtful. But this is the minimum standard: stand in opposition to the President’s plan to escalate the war in Iraq. If you object to that language, if you think that a non-binding resolution is going to be too harsh, then it tells me exactly where you stand. And, unfortunately, Ben Nelson believes that this resolution is too harsh on the President.
I can give Nelson a minimal amount of credit for co-sponsoring a resolution expressing disapproval with the President’s plan. But he fails to understand the fundamental point of this debate. To express clear and unequivocal opposition to the administration’s policy, and to get us out of Iraq, as soon as humanly possible! Allowing the administration to set the tone of the debate, allowing the other side to set the language and terms of the debate, guarantees failure. If you demonstrate and announce that calling a spade a spade is too harsh then you demonstrate to the American people that you don’t have the stomach for this debate. You don’t want to go any further than telling the President you have “reservations” with his policy. But you don’t want to hurt his feelings? This President? This administration? The ones who have called opponents of the war everything from Nazi appeasers to traitors to outright terrorists? The ones who have been wrong every step of the way?
Senator Nelson has demonstrated his intention here, to water down opposition to this disastrous policy by using the most tame and “inoffensive” language possible. But the policy is offensive, and timid opposition does us no good.
It’s not simply about the escalation, though, even if it were, Nelson’s proposal may be the most toothless of all. It’s about getting our troops home. And if Nelson is unwilling to offer anything more than this for the debate at hand, he cannot offer very much at all in the debate to come. And that’s a shame. I pray that I am wrong here, and that the Senator will take action in the future. But experience tells me otherwise.
