It was a performance that only fans of the Theater of the Absurd could love. There they were: former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, singing chorus after chorus of “Helpless” as they explained to Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” that, yes, Democrats were briefed on many occasions about the National Security Agency foreign terrorist surveillance program, but they simply had no avenue open to them to express their deep concerns about its legality.
Thus, we learned how the Democrats intend to justify their three-year silence about the program, which was broken only when The New York Times went public, giving Democrats an opening for a new line of attacks on the president and his national security policies.
In a weak performance, Harman actually tried to explain her lack of oversight by suggesting that she, like Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), her counterpart on the Senate Intelligence Committee, had no one to talk to about their concerns. Voicing strong support for the program in one breath, Harman then tried to have it both ways, saying, “I talked to absolutely no one because I would have violated three different federal criminal statutes had I talked to anyone.”
Referencing the publication of the Times article, Harman pleaded that when it came to the Congressional “Gang of Eight” who were briefed on the program, “There was no way to raise any reservations before that.” No way?
How about picking up the phone and calling the president, the vice president, House Intelligence Chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) or the head of the NSA surveillance program? Or, if the phone wasn’t her complaint line of choice, how about a letter to any of the above officially raising her objections, and which would have required an official reply?
Harman talked to no one.
Of course, Rockefeller did pen a short note to Vice President Cheney expressing worry over the program’s oversight, but he never mentioned the letter or his concerns to Roberts. Instead, he popped the missive into his safe, waiting years for a politically opportune moment to release it, a moment conveniently provided by the Times.
But Harman and Rockefeller are hardly alone in their rhetorical contortions on the issue of NSA surveillance. Most Capitol Hill Democrats seem to have adopted what amounts to the inverse of a Biblical approach to the problem: Love the sin but hate the sinner. They are desperately trying to straddle the national security fence, telling everyone who will listen that they now are enthusiastic supporters of the program. It is the real and growing threat to America’s civil liberties posed by President Bush that’s got them worried.
In reality, their conundrum, whether on the NSA anti-terrorism program, the USA PATRIOT Act or the war itself, reflects a party in disarray in two disturbing ways. First, Democrats simply have been unable to come to terms with what they believe, deep down, as a party about national security. They have no ideas, no alternatives, so they try to pass off criticism as content.
Second, Democrats have become so irrationally angry about Bush that they reflexively oppose anything the president is for. When the Times story broke, most Democrats rushed to judgment and to the microphones to instinctively condemn the program and the president. What they have now discovered is that they are on the wrong side of this issue. In a recent New Models poll done by the Winston Group, we asked the question, “Do you favor or oppose allowing federal authorities to conduct surveillance on individuals’ e-mails and phone calls to al Qaeda operatives without a court order?”
Sixty percent of survey respondents favored the surveillance; 37 percent opposed. When the terrorism aspect of the program is mentioned, other polls have showed similar results, and Democrats have found themselves in 2004 all over again. In the presidential election, Democratic nominee John Kerry’s (Mass.) fluid policy positions on the war became the embodiment of the party’s internal conflict on national security issues which has plagued them since 1972. Nothing captured that conflict better than the Senator’s famous “I voted for it before I voted against it” statement, referring to his flip-flopping position on the $87 billion military appropriations bill in 2003 for the war in Iraq.
Like Harman today, Kerry wanted to have it both ways: to appeal to both opponents and proponents of the war. The best you can say about his conflicting positions is at least he had the decency to take those two positions at two different times. Now, Democrats seem to have adopted a new strategy. Call it Kerry 2.0: They are desperately trying to be both for and against the program at exactly the same time.
In short, the current Democratic position on the tapping of international terrorist phone calls can be summed up this way: “The NSA surveillance program is crucial to national security and should be continued. We support it. It is also illegal and a threat to civil liberties. We oppose it and, of course, George Bush must be held accountable for his illegal actions.” This is not a national security policy that makes sense, or a national political party that can be taken seriously. It is clearly an absurd position.
Finding the right balance between intelligence-gathering and civil liberties is no easy task, and I suspect administration officials would be the first to agree with that statement. But in briefing the Hill on the NSA anti-terrorism program, they fulfilled their obligation to keep Congress informed. If the Democrats had concerns about its purpose or implementation, they had a similar obligation to do their oversight duty and propose real alternative strategies. They failed and in doing so risk total irrelevancy when it comes to the joint responsibility Republicans and Democrats share for national defense and homeland security.
Voters elect leaders, not critics who sit on the sidelines feigning helplessness.