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A Tale Of Two Georgians
By Paul M. Weyrich
September 3, 2004
Senator Zell Miller, (D-GA) stood before the Republican National Convention this week to deliver the keynote speech. The Senator's conscience led him to part ways with his party's presidential candidate in this election; he plans to cast his first-ever vote for a Republican presidential candidate in over fifty years of voting. Senator Miller has come to admire the President's personal qualities and his leadership ability. The Senator minced no words in expressing his concern about the leftward drift of his party in his recent book examining "the conscience of a conservative Democrat." That the Senator has repeatedly aired his concern about the unfortunate state of his party with grace and humor has only made him more respected, not just by Republicans but also those Democrats whose understanding of politics and the Electoral College make them wish he would feel differently.
Senator Miller came to Washington in July 2000, having been appointed to fill the vacancy left by the untimely death of Senator Paul Coverdell, (R-GA). However, Miller's career as a public officeholder in Georgia extends back to the 1950s. He made the nominating speech for Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention because back than the Arkansas Governor was talking about welfare reform, the importance of families, and meting out punishment to criminals. Senator Miller understands that his career in public service is at the behest of the citizens of his state.
Now contrast Senator Miller with his former colleague, Max Cleland, (D-GA), a highly decorated Vietnam veteran who lost several limbs and must rely on a wheelchair. Former Senator Cleland has been in the news recently, delivering partisan shots at President Bush, visiting the President's ranch in Texas to urge him to speak out against the criticism of John Kerry's war record.
Cleland served one term in the Senate then was defeated by Saxby Chambliss, (R-GA) fair and square in the 2002 election. Election campaigns are like basketball games, there's plenty of jostling and elbowing for position. If you get shoved, you're supposed to push back. The Chambliss campaign ran some pointed advertising that included pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein while making the point that Cleland had cast votes that would have handcuffed President Bush from having the Department of Homeland Security operate in the manner the President felt most appropriate.
What the advertisement said was: "As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators, Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead. He says he supports President Bush at every opportunity, but that's not the truth. Since July, Max Cleland voted against President Bush's vital homeland security efforts 11 times!"
Cleland did support the legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security, but there was controversy over whether the Department's employees should receive the usual civil service protections, which would have limited the authority of the President in personnel matters. Cleland backed a plan favored by organized labor and said he supported a "bipartisan compromise on the workforce issue."
However, Senators John McCain, (R-AZ) and Chuck Hagel, (R-NE), both Vietnam veterans, rushed to Cleland's defense with the latter even threatening to tape an advertisement denouncing the Chambliss commercial unless it was pulled. The Chambliss campaign decided to remove pictures of bin Laden and Hussein from their commercial. Senator Miller, a supporter of the President's plan on homeland security, came to Cleland's defense, employing tough words of his own against Cleland's opponent.
The Cleland campaign should have been able to capitalize upon the controversy, even trying to turn it to their favor. Perhaps they did. The Washington Post in a post-election profile of the defeated Cleland noted there were polls immediately prior to the election that gave the Democrat the edge in the U.S. Senate race. However, Chambliss lost in a year when many more rural white males went to the polls to register disapproval not just of him but of the State's Governor who wanted to change the state flag and even key leaders in the state legislature.
Cleland evidently felt that public service is not a privilege conferred by the voters, but one that is his right given the petulant manner in which he has acted since his defeat. As in the case of the liberal Democrats defeated in the 1978 and 1980 election, he proved to be ungracious in defeat, preferring to believe, as did his colleagues (Thomas McIntyre (D-NH), George McGovern, (D-SD), etc.) who had met similar fates decades before, that the negative advertising aired by the opposition had duped voters into supporting conservatives. He seemed unable to believe that the trouble was in his liberal record, which was out of step with the voters of his state. The voters certainly realized it as such, though the thought appears never to have crossed Cleland's mind. He believed that he lost because his "negatives" had been driven up. After his defeat, Cleland went into a funk, complaining that his defeat was "the second big grenade in my life. It blew me up...I was left with virtually nothing but my life."
Cleland's former Senate colleagues rallied around him. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, (D-SD) recommended Cleland for a position on the board of the Export-Import Bank that pays $136,000 a year and does not demand 9-5 hours. Senator Chambliss did not object. President Bush graciously followed suit in making the nomination. All fine and good. Then came the charade in Texas.
Indeed, if Cleland wanted to resign his post to engage in a partisan political stunt that was orchestrated by the Kerry campaign, then this commentary would not be written. National Review's Rich Lowry has asked this question, suggesting that if Cleland "had any decency" then he would indeed depart from the Ex-Im bank's Board and wait to be reappointed by the next President who is to his liking.
Even before Cleland received the appointment, he had cast doubt about President Bush and his policies, but evidently felt no compunction in accepting an appointment from him. Most politicians learn to deal with the cards that they have been dealt, they move on. Not Cleland. He wants it both ways. He wants to draw his $136,000 salary, thanks to the willingness of President Bush to push partisanship aside, and then stab him in the back, too. Lowry wondered if Cleland is so down on the President why did he even accept the appointment in the first place?
That's a good question. Senator Miller has done the honorable thing, putting partisanship aside to do what he feels is right by his conscience in supporting President Bush, making clear that his party's current leaders have left him and many southern Democrats behind by their embrace of extreme liberalism. He commented earlier this year that he expects to remain a Democrat, citing the work of Presidents Kennedy, Truman and Roosevelt as exemplifying the best of the party that he still cherishes. He intends to remain loyal to his party -- if not its presidential candidate this year -- doing what he can to return the party to its best principles and values.
Senator Miller sees the highest echelons of his party's leadership drifting away from the core values that have historically defined it and has handled his dissent from partisan orthodoxy in the proper fashion. Cleland in embracing dissent while on the public payroll, biting the helping hand extended to him, looks churlish, ungrateful, and excessively partisan. He may like it that way, able to draw money from the public while savaging a President whose policies he so vehemently opposes. Let him be opposed to President Bush and his policies if he wants, but not on our dime.
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Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.
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