Sunday, April 17, 2005
Paging Bob Dole
I've tended to be suspicious of the line that Bob Dole is, in the end sum, a grand old guy. Yes he served his country valiantly in World War 2, but the experience seemingly made him a very bitter guy afterward, as evidenced by his bizarre "Democrat wars" crack during the 1976 campaign. He very probably ensured that his Kansas opponents wound up on Nixon's enemies list. During Clinton's first term, Dole did quite a lot to turn the Senate into a battleground, deeming Clinton an essentially unelected president because he hadn't cleared 50% in a 3-way race. Dole's reelection campaign in 1992 was hit with a massive fine for campaign finance violations. His lead fundraiser went to prison. In 1996, candidate Dole tried to stir the heartland with a nativist, anti-UN pitch. Last summer, he lent credence to the Swift Boat clowns, saying basically the fact that they were making such a fuss proved that there must be something to their story. Collegiality among senators be damned.
So, I don't buy the argument that he's a class act. I much prefer the notion that he's been a willing hatchet man, with an odd tendency to refer to himself in the third person.
Anyway, he recently voiced, in his own small way, concerns about the ongoing GOP move to undermine the filibuster. On NPR, he said: "You want to think down the road. The Senate's going to change. It's not always going to be Republican. It changes back and forth. History shows that."
That's a good start, and nothing there is untrue. But if Bob Dole wants to be a real statesman, to live up to this image that has been so generously constructed around him, he'll need to do a bit more than say this on liberal radio (how many dittoheads were listening?). He's going to need to go on Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity and Colmes and so forth. We're, after all, only talking about the institution that he invested his life in.
Time to step up and prove me wrong, Bob. Show us that this isn't what Bob Dole would want.
So, I don't buy the argument that he's a class act. I much prefer the notion that he's been a willing hatchet man, with an odd tendency to refer to himself in the third person.
Anyway, he recently voiced, in his own small way, concerns about the ongoing GOP move to undermine the filibuster. On NPR, he said: "You want to think down the road. The Senate's going to change. It's not always going to be Republican. It changes back and forth. History shows that."
That's a good start, and nothing there is untrue. But if Bob Dole wants to be a real statesman, to live up to this image that has been so generously constructed around him, he'll need to do a bit more than say this on liberal radio (how many dittoheads were listening?). He's going to need to go on Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity and Colmes and so forth. We're, after all, only talking about the institution that he invested his life in.
Time to step up and prove me wrong, Bob. Show us that this isn't what Bob Dole would want.
