'A Very Difficult Vote'
New York's Democratic senators, Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, find themselves more often skewered than praised in this column. So when they do the right thing, as they did Friday by voting for $87 billion in additional funding for military operations and rebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's a pleasure for us to mark the advance.
Mrs. Clinton made a point of noting in her remarks on the Senate floor that it was "a very difficult vote." Despite her hand-wringing, she gave us a glimpse of a Hillary Clinton who is more hawkish than even Vice President Cheney. "It is hard for me to really understand how this administration, led by many from the vice president to the secretary of defense to others who have been committed to overturning the regime of Saddam Hussein since they made the mistake of not going to Baghdad in the first gulf war could be so ill prepared," Mrs. Clinton said.
It was an amazing statement, coming from one so often identified with the left wing of the Democratic Party for Mrs. Clinton to come out and say that the first Bush administration's failure to go all the way to Baghdad and finish the war was a "mistake."We don't recall her voicing this opinion back at the time. Maybe she did. In any case, it's just terrific to see that she's learned the lessons of history and come around to the view that was voiced at the time by, among others, the editors of the Wall Street Journal in their February 21, 1991, editorial, "An Elbe in the Desert," and by those of the Jewish Forward in the January 18, 1991, editorial "After Iraq " which said that only "the removal of the Baghdad regime" would set the stage for a broader peace.
Mr. Schumer did not retrace the history of the first Gulf War unlike Mrs. Clinton, he was in Congress at the time, and he voted against it. This time around, however, Mr. Schumer, to his credit, voted for the money. It is needed to help improve the lives of Iraqis and, in so doing, create a better Middle East that will make America safer from terrorist attack.
It's too bad that more of the Democratic presidential candidates aren't comporting themselves like Mr. Schumer and Mrs. Clinton. As David Brooks noted in a New York Times column over the weekend, Senators Kerry and Edwards voted against the money. Mr. Kerry is running in part on his war record, and Mr. Edwards styles himself a moderate. Both voted for the war resolution. But they don't want to finish the job. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, another Democratic presidential candidate, also voted against the $87 billion. Rep. Richard Gephardt and Senator Lieberman, at least, voted the right way.
That is more than can be said for most of New York City's representatives in the House of Representatives. There, only Republican Vito Fossella and Democrats Gary Ackerman, Eliot Engel, and Carolyn Maloney supported the president's request for the $87 billion. Reps. Charles Rangel, Greg Meeks, Jerrold Nadler, Major Owens, Jose Serrano, Nydia Velazquez, Ed Towns, Joseph Crowley, and even Anthony Weiner, usually a sensible vote on national security issues, all voted against spending the money. Those nine can know that, when it comes to supporting our troops and rebuilding the Middle East, Senator Clinton has a firmer stand than they do. She didn't turn her back on the hopes for freedom in Iraq.
