[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 18734-18735]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            ELECTION CONTEST

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in the world of politics, every election 
seems to test the bottom when it comes to mudslinging. I am afraid this 
year's election contest is no exception, and it is plummeting hitherto 
uncharted depths.
  Some of the things that have been said on both sides I am sure on 
reflection are going to be the source of some embarrassment, and some 
of the actions taken by both campaigns will be regretted in the future. 
But there is one particular element in this debate in the Presidential 
campaign that I find particularly bothersome. It relates to statements 
that have been made by Vice President Cheney, by the Speaker of the 
House, Dennis Hastert, and by Members of the Senate, and others, 
relative to the patriotism of candidates for office and relative to 
questions as to whether the American people, by casting their vote one 
way or the other on November 2, are somehow inviting terrorism to 
strike America.
  Vice President Cheney, at a political rally in Des Moines, IA, 
Tuesday, September 7, said:

       It's absolutely essential that 8 weeks from today, on 
     November 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the 
     wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again and 
     we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the 
     standpoint of the United States. And we'll fall back into the 
     pre-9/11 mindset, if you will, that in fact these terrorist 
     attacks are just criminal acts and that we're not really at 
     war.

  This quote by the Vice President received a lot of attention. The 
clear suggestion by the Vice President is that if the American people 
should not vote for President Bush, they are inviting a terrorist 
attack. That is an outrageous statement. I think it is one that, 
frankly, Vice President Cheney on reflection might not have made. Would 
it be appropriate to argue that since the terrorists attacked the 
United States while he was serving as Vice President, they saw weakness 
in the Bush-Cheney administration? I would not make that preposterous 
charge. I do not believe anyone can. And yet here we have the Vice 
President suggesting that if you do not vote to reelect President Bush, 
you are inviting a terrorist attack on the United States.
  Just last Saturday in DeKalb, IL, the Speaker of the House, Dennis 
Hastert, was quoted as saying:

       I don't have data or intelligence to tell me one thing or 
     another, (but) I would think they would be more apt to go 
     (for) somebody who would file a lawsuit with the World Court 
     or something rather than respond with troops.

  Speaker Hastert said that of John Kerry.
  Asked by reporters whether he believed al-Qaida could operate better 
with Kerry in the White House, Hastert replied:

       That's my opinion, yes.

  I think this is a new low in American politics. For us to suggest 
that either major political party would field a candidate who would in 
any way knowingly or unknowingly compromise the security and safety of 
the United States I believe is a charge that must be backed up with 
solid evidence if it is ever going to be leveled. In this case, Speaker 
Hastert said, ``I don't have data or intelligence to tell me one thing 
or another. . . .''
  The reason I believe this is important is that when we reach the 
point in a campaign when the Vice President suggests that a vote for 
John Kerry invites a terrorist attack on our country, and the Speaker 
of the House, after acknowledging he has no information to support his 
statement, joins Mr. Cheney with the chorus of ``vote for Bush or 
die,'' not to be outdone--and let me make it clear, I put ``vote for 
Bush or die'' in quotes. That is my statement. I am not attributing 
that to either of those individuals. So we have a situation where this 
has become a standard charge in the campaign at the highest levels.
  There was a time in American politics when people were circumspect 
about even raising the issue of the fact that the former Governor of 
Illinois, Adlai Stevenson, had been divorced. In the 1950s, it was not 
really considered to be appropriate to raise that in the national 
debate, although there were certainly a lot of rumors and murmuring in 
the background.
  Now we see the debate on the Presidential level reaching what I think 
are new depths, where at the highest levels questions are being raised 
as to whether John Kerry would, in fact, defend the United States 
against a terrorist attack. I think that is a troubling development.
  These are not the only statements that have been made. This morning 
on the Fox News Channel one of my colleagues, whom I work with on a 
regular basis, Senator Hatch of Utah, raised the same issue. Others 
have as well.
  We saw in the debate last Saturday where John Thune, a former 
Congressman of South Dakota, was debating Senator Tom Daschle, the 
Democratic minority leader. In the course of their debate, he argued 
that the fact Tom Daschle had been critical of the Bush 
administration's policies in Iraq ``emboldened the enemy.'' John Thune 
said that Tom Daschle's words emboldened the enemy.
  What we have reached is the point where any criticism of our foreign 
policy leads to the charge that we are not being patriotic, leads to 
the charge that we would not stand up to defend America, and leads to 
the charge that in some respects the terrorists would be emboldened by 
those comments and our troops would be demoralized.
  So what does that tell us? If Members of the Senate on either side of 
the aisle stand up and are critical of our policy in Iraq, are they to 
be targeted then as somehow selling out America, somehow guilty of 
traitorous comments? That is what we can draw from these comments made 
by Republican leaders as well as Republican candidates.
  Yet Senator Harkin made a statement earlier in the day which noted 
the obvious. Even Republican Senators are being critical today of our 
policy in Iraq. This last Sunday, Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican of 
Nebraska, said, in reference to Iraq: The fact is, we are in trouble. 
We are in deep trouble in Iraq.
  Do we embolden the enemy by being critical of our policy in Iraq? I 
do not think so. I think it is part of the normal political discourse 
which one expects in a democracy.

[[Page 18735]]

  Similarly, Senator Richard Lugar, the distinguished chairman of the 
Foreign Relations Committee, a friend of mine and colleague from the 
State of Indiana, criticized what he called the incompetence in the 
administration that has resulted in the failed Iraq reconstruction 
effort.
  Does he embolden the enemy, demoralize the troops, by pointing out 
these shortcomings in American foreign policy? He is a Republican 
Senator. I have not heard Vice President Cheney or any others criticize 
Senators such as Lugar or Hagel for making these comments.
  Senator John McCain said recently: We are not winning. Senator 
Lindsey Graham said that we need to be ``more honest about how 
difficult it will be'' in Iraq.
  The list goes on, and the list tells me that Senators of good 
conscience on both sides of the aisle feel an obligation to disagree 
with the President on foreign policy when they have an honest 
disagreement and to suggest that changes in foreign policy or changes 
in military policy are important for the security of America.
  I do not know if Vice President Cheney or the Speaker of the House 
would criticize the fact I have been openly critical of some of the 
military decisions that have been made since the invasion of Iraq. When 
a man comes into my office and tells me his son is a military policeman 
in Iraq and because he cannot be issued body armor he and his wife were 
raising money at home to buy the body armor and send it to their son, I 
came to the floor to criticize that. Of the billions of dollars we have 
sent in preparation for this war, one would think it obvious that body 
armor would be one of the first things issued to our soldiers. In this 
case, it was not.
  I was critical of the administration, critical of our policies, 
critical of foreign policy and military policy. Would Vice President 
Cheney argue that I am giving comfort to the enemy by suggesting that? 
I certainly hope not.
  When we found that our Humvees were sitting targets for homemade 
bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, that we had been remiss in failing 
to equip our Humvees in Iraq with armor plating on the sides to protect 
our soldiers, many of us came to the floor and made that point, wrote 
letters to the administration, forced a change in policy, which 
resulted in more and more of these Humvees being reconstructed, refit 
with armor to protect the troops.
  Does the fact we were critical of the administration raise some 
question as to whether we are demoralizing the troops? Exactly the 
opposite occurred. When the Humvees arrived with the armor, our troops' 
morale went up. They had a chance to survive the attack. They did not 
have it before.
  So Members of Congress--from Senator Kerry, through Republican and 
Democratic Senators alike--have a moral obligation to raise those 
issues where they disagree with this administration on foreign policy 
or military policy, whether they are on the Republican side of the 
aisle or the Democratic side of the aisle. This debate which we have 
seen disintegrate and descend to the levels that I have referred to 
needs to come to an end.
  This is not the first time those in the highest levels of political 
office in Washington have questioned the patriotism of others in 
political office, have questioned whether they have the national 
security of America paramount in their mind. The same thing occurred in 
the 1950s. A Republican Senator from Wisconsin named Joe McCarthy went 
about throwing charges at people right and left that they were not 
loyal to America; that they were, in fact, communist. He destroyed a 
lot of people. He destroyed a lot of careers in the process.
  There came a time in the course of the Army hearings with Senator 
McCarthy where finally one voice spoke out. That voice turned to 
Senator McCarthy and said: Have you no shame?
  The same question needs to be asked of those who are throwing around 
so loosely these charges that either John Kerry, John Edwards, or Tom 
Daschle do not have the best interests of the United States at heart in 
everything that they do.
  I disagree many times with my colleagues on the floor when it comes 
to foreign policy, military policy, and many other issues. Yet I have 
never and will never ever question their patriotism. I believe that is 
beyond the pale of ordinary political discourse. It has now become 
common conversation in this Presidential campaign.
  On November 2, the voters will have the opportunity to ask the 
candidates who use these low tactics, Have you no shame?
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.

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