An Iraq Caucus of One

What is happening to George Will? He starts to make sense to me.. which is frightening.. - qe

washingtonpost.com

An Iraq Caucus of One

By George F. Will
Sunday, June 17, 2007; B07

Last month in Iraq, Sen. Gordon Smith, the Oregon Republican, had lunch with three soldiers from his state, one of whom had been working with an Iraqi officer training police cadets. That soldier told Smith that when the cadets learned that the Iraqi officer was Catholic, they stoned him. To death. As the legislative branch gropes for relevance regarding Iraq, attention is focused on Democrats. They control Congress and could end American involvement in Iraq, but -- so far -- they flinch from wielding the only power that can do that, the blunt instrument of cutting off funds.

Consider, however, Smith's plight. The commander in chief is of Smith's party; Smith's Oregon base retains a loyalty, albeit attenuated, to the president; Smith's party is a minority in Congress, and he is essentially a one-man minority faction in the Republican Senate Caucus. So far. His path to this uncomfortable position began when he boarded a red-eye flight to Washington from Portland last July, carrying what he thought might be interesting reading -- the book " Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" by The Post's Tom Ricks. "By the time I landed at Dulles," he remembers, "I was sick to my stomach." He was convinced that the American mission in Iraq was (in the words of a U.S. official in Iraq, quoted by Ricks) like pasting feathers together and hoping for a duck.

A few hours after Smith arrived in Washington that day, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld attended the Republican senators' weekly lunch, where Smith asked if he had read "Fiasco." Rumsfeld said he had not and asked the name of the author. Smith recalls that when Rumsfeld was told it was Ricks, he dismissively said, "Oh, that guy writes for The Post." Five months later, Smith went to the Senate floor, where, distraught and speaking extemporaneously, he declared: "I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal."

(snip)

In Iraq last month, Smith was dispirited by the contrast between meeting with inspiring U.S. troops and meeting with grim members of the Iraqi parliament. When the parliamentarians gave a dusty answer to his question about the length of the summer vacation they might take, he said: I want you to go -- if you will first pass legislation allocating oil revenue. Their response, he says, was to show pictures of people slaughtered in the parliamentarians' neighborhoods. They were, he says, bent "on revenge, not reconciliation."

(snip)

Since Smith's "end of my rope" speech six months ago, the senator has been voting with the Democrats on such Iraq matters as timelines and benchmarks, stopping short only of voting for Sen. Russ Feingold's proposal to cut off funds for the war next March. Among Republicans, he is virtually a caucus of one. Unless you count Nebraska's Chuck Hagel, who counts less and less because he is decreasingly active among Senate Republicans.

(snip)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061501981.html

Kudos to Smith--he gets a lot of "oh, he's just doing it to get re-elected" attitude here for his stand on Iraq, but it's lonely and difficult for him, I'm sure. And I'm also sure my Senator, Hagel, will be pleased to hear that he "counts less and less"--OUCH! That was quite the unprovoked slam.

small government, live and let live.