Posted by
Mike Bates on Saturday, July 19, 2008 1:20:20 PM
"Obama’s Lobbyist Policy Excludes Cleland"
was posted last night on the New York Times's "The Caucus" blog. It
relates that former Georgia Senator Max Cleland was disinvited from a
Barack Obama fundraiser because the decorated war veteran is now a
registered lobbyist.
The piece ends with:
As a surrogate for Senator John Kerry during the 2004
presidential campaign, Mr. Cleland often got marquee billing at
campaign events, even landing a coveted speaking role at the Democratic
National Convention. He lost his bid for a second term in 2002 after a
Republican television advertisement depicted him as unpatriotic.
The assertion that Cleland's opponent in the 2002 election, Saxby
Chambliss, challenged his patriotism is inaccurate. Michael Crowley is
senior editor of The New Republic, a magazine described by the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz as "left-leaning." In an April 2, 2004 Slate article titled "Former Sen. Max Cleland: How the disabled war veteran became the Democrats' mascot," Crowley described what actually occurred:
Most famously, Chambliss ran a vicious ad on Cleland's
homeland security votes featuring images of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam
Hussein. In the popular liberal mythology, the ad disgustingly
questioned Cleland's patriotism. "To this day I am motivated by—and I
will be throughout this campaign—the most craven moment I've ever seen
in politics, when the Republican Party challenged this man's patriotism
in the last campaign," John Kerry has said.
But that's not what happened. The ad, though sleazy in its use of
Osama and Saddam, didn't question Cleland's patriotism. It questioned
his political courage and judgment. It focused narrowly on his behavior
in office and his actual votes against the Homeland Security
Department. With images of Bin Laden and Saddam flashing onscreen, a
narrator declared that, "As America faces terrorists and extremist
dictators, Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage
to lead." The ad then listed Cleland's votes against the Homeland
Security Department and said he was stalling "the president's vital
homeland security efforts." It concluded: "Max Cleland says he has the
courage to lead, but the record proves Max Cleland is just misleading."
Unfortunately, Cleland did a lousy job of responding to such
attacks. As he was pummeled on national security—clearly the issue of
the day as war with Iraq neared, Cleland stuck to stale Democratic
themes like Social Security. Occasionally, Cleland and his supporters
counterattacked, but they were ineffective.
Crowley's evaluation is correct. Cleland's opponent questioned his
judgment, not his patriotism. The rest is a liberal myth, one still
being circulated by the New York Times.