A Safire column that could serve as "another voice"
Yesterday, the Chronicle posted a typically simplistic editorial, in which the editors hyperventilated about several relevant, experienced GOP committee chairmen putting the brakes on a massive intelligence "reform" bill that had been moving through the Congress at breakneck speed (certainly faster than many Bush judicial nominees, which only require an up/down vote of the Senate).
Today, William Safire -- whose columns are regularly picked up by the Chronicle -- pens a sober response to mainstream media types that, like the Chronicle, have criticized the administration for strong-arming its critics (on the left and right), but now argue that it needs to whip into line committee chairmen who presumably know more about their areas of expertise than, say, Jeff Cohen or Andrea Georgsson:
The sore-loser set has been complaining that the president has banished healthy internal dissent. Darryl Zanuck's classic line to quavering executives has been evoked, "Don't say yes until I finish talking!"
But wait: that was before a minority of a hundred or so members of Congress, basing their stand on the testimony of the nation's five most senior military officers, refused to say yes to the private lobbying juggernaut set up by the disbanded 9/11 commission. This group had already brought the media, the Congressional leadership and finally the president to their knees.
The principled refusal of two House committee chairmen to be steamrollered into hasty passage of a pre-election-driven bill has flipped the previous bashing of the supposedly domineering Bush 180 degrees.
Now the party line is: "Whatsamatter, W., you can't whip these right-wingers of yours into line? The Establishment has decreed that our intelligence operations will be reorganized now, quick, before the new Congress takes the oath and holds further hearings. Why can't you force your generals and your saluting solons to get with the program? Where's Tom (the Hammer) DeLay when we need him?"
That's quite a flip-flop.
Speaking of flip-flops, in a delicious twist, the Chron editors actually tossed a little praise towards DeLay:
If, as has been reported, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, spoke up for going ahead with the bill, good for him.
As Safire asks, what's the rush? Who can be opposed to getting the thing right?
One wonders whether the Chronicle will pick up this Safire column.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/24/04 10:00 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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