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Today's
Stories
October
30 / 31, 2004
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Spartacus Tells
October
29, 2004
Harry
Browne
No Justice for Peace Activist in County
Clare
October
28, 2004
Forrest Hylton
"The Gas is Ours:" Bolivia's
Ghosts of October
Col. Dan Smith
Rebellion
in the Ranks
Alan Maass
Jon Stewart v. the Pundits
Ron Jacobs
Ecstasy
in Red Sox Nation
Alexander
Cockburn
Kerrycrats and the War
October
27, 2004
Jules
Rabin
Crammed with Distressful Politics
Dave
Lindorff
Bulgegate: the Lies Continue
Katherine
Van Tassel
On the Home Front: Both Parties
Ignore Working Parents
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
October 26,
2004
Brian Cloughley
Three
Weddings and Lots of Funerals: Atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan
William Blum
Fear
Factors
Lenni Brenner
The
1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Lessons for 2004
Ben Tripp
The
Chicken Salad Election
Fidel Castro
After the Fall
Greg Bates
The Nation's Flawed Calculus
Walter Brasch
Gag the Public: the War on Dissent
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
An Open Letter to Pat Buchanan
Mickey Z.
Rumble in the Jungle at 30: Ali, Foreman and the Congo
Amir Taheri
The Boom in Conspiracy Theories
Alexander Billet
Say It Ain't So, Bruce!: the Boss Endorses Kerry
Doug Giebel
The Religion of G.W. Bush
Kathleen Christison
Why
I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't
October 25,
2004
Ralph Nader
Letter
from a Minnesota Highway
Werther
West
Texas Wahabbism
Dave Zirin
Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License
Omar Barghouti
Executing Another Child in Rafah
William J. Nottingham
Lori Berenson's Story
John Chuckman
A Foolish Consistency
Uri Avnery
On
the Road to Civil War
October 22
/ 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
You
Can't Blame Nader for This
Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions
Willliam A.
Cook
Killing for Christ
Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?
Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children
While Arresting Priest
Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really
Means
William S.
Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War
Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry
Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"
Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?
Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military
Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion
M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America
David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and
Kerry
David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs
Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story
Website of
the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling
October 21,
2004
Ben Tripp
The
Undecided Voter Examined
Joshua Frank
Kerry
and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green
Stan Cox
What
the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses
Bill Martinez
State
Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply
Mark Engler
The War and Globalization
Lina Britto
and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia:
a Year After the October Insurrection
Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
Jason Leopold
Sinclair
Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception
Jesse Sharkey
A
Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School
Students
Col. Dan Smith
Choking
Free Speech About the Draft
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion
David Vest
If
Bush Wins, Blame Me
Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny
Ron Jacobs
Time
to Kick It Up a Notch
James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?
Christopher
Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest
Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...
Website of
the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue
October 19,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
Weekend Edition
October 30 / 31, 2004
Spartacus Tells
All
How
Both Parties Exploit the Defense Budget
By
WINSLOW T. WHEELER
[Editors' Note: This is the preface
from Winslow Wheeler's vitally important new book The
Wastrel's of Defense. Wheeler, who as a top congressional staffer
wrote a series of explosive essays on the Pentagon's budget under
the pen name of "Spartacus," is scheduled to appear
on "60 Minutes" this weekend. Now an analyst at the
Center for Defense Information, Wheeler is also a contributor
to CounterPunch's hot new book, Dime's
Worth of Difference. AC/JSC]
Senator Pete V. Domenici (R N.Mex.)
didn't want to make the phone call, but his staff director explained
why he had to. Domenici had told the Albuquerque Journal he had
fired me,[1] but as his staff director explained that if he didn't
permit me simply to resign I could make life difficult for the
senator. Domenici had been angered by an essay I wrote that had
been circulated widely on the internet and described in various
newspapers and journals, some of them national . But to continue
to treat me as he had would only provide more grist for the press
to cover.. Over the years, I had become a frequent source to
many in the press and in some cases a friend.The senator wouldn't
like what some of them might write about my being fired.
Moreover, the press coverage
was not likely to be restricted to the Albuquerque Journal; it
could well be in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post,
and other national media that had already written about my offending
essay. Now they might draw the nation's attention to my detailed
insider's account of how atrociously the Senate had behaved in
the immediate aftermath of the September 11 2001 terror attacks.
Examples:
Senators added $4 billion in
irrelevant and useless projects ("pork") for their
home states to the defense budget ( e.g., the army museum Senator
Robert Byrd (D- WVa.) added for West Virginia; the parking garages
Ted Stevens (R- Alaska) put in for Alaska; and the unrequested
career development center Domenici himself added for White Sands
Missile Range in New Mexico).
The same senators stripped
$2.4 billion out the defense bill's accounts that supported military
training, weapons maintenance, spare parts, and other military
"readiness" items (just the things soldiers need most
) to help pay  for the pork.
This was done just as the first American casualties were coming
home from the fighting in Afghanistan, some of them in boxes
Senator, John McCain (RAriz.) gave an excellent speech railing
against all this and then stood quietly by as the Senate voted
to add another $387 million in pork to the defense bill. The
Senate's self-described "pork buster" was nothing more
than a "pork enabler."
If the press woke up to what
was going on -- and Domenici's firing me could be an alarm bell
there could be some real trouble.
Even so, Domenici was reluctant
to make the phone call. I had broken just about every unwritten
rule for how congressional staff should behave. I had criticized
senators by name and in writing which I had done not to obtain
advantage for my own senator, (something that was not merely
allowed but encouraged) -- and I had attacked all political persuasions.
I even made Domenici look bad for not doing his job as a Budget
Committee leader who should have stood up for rules that, if
enforced, would have stopped some of the bad behavior.
I had bitten the hand that
fed me, and I had bitten the hand that fed Domenici. By attacking
Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the top ranking Republican on
the Senate Appropriations Committee, I was complicating Domenici's
access to pork for New Mexico. An ill-tempered individual, Stevens
doled out pork like candy, but only to well-behaved senators.
If Stevens associated my criticism with Domenici, he might take
it out on Domenici's pork, and that might hurt his reputation
in New Mexico where he was known as "Saint Pete" for
all the federal spending he brought in. That could spell trouble
in the November elections.
Despite all this, Domenici
was being told he had to call me and eat his words about firing
me. This was turning the senate world on its head. Senators don't
eat humble pie; staffers do, especially miscreants like me.
Acknowledging he understood
what he hd to do, Domenici picked up the phone and gruffly told
his secretary to get me on the line. By the time the phone started
ringing, he had adjusted his tone. "If I had really meant
to fire you, I would have told you first," he said in as
friendly a voice as he could muster. I responded to Domenici's
peace overture in as friendly a voice as I could: "Hi boss;
I appreciate your saying that." Then, I changed my tone,
but only slightly. "I think we understand each other,"
I said. "You,ll have my resignation by the end of the month.
You won't read any more in the press about all this if I have
anything to say about it." The call ended as abruptly as
it began, with both of us avoiding saying anything that would
disrupt the superficially friendly finale to my thirty-one year
career on Capitol Hill.
As soon as Domenici hung up,
I made some phone calls. I told the ABC news researcher I had
decided against an on-the-air interview; I told American Spectator
magazine I didn't want to publish my essay after all. I did not
return a call from the New Republic, thereby making sure it would
not write anything. Domenici had relented; the parting was going
to be amicable.
The engineer of the agreeable
parting, the Budget Committee's Republican Staff Director, G.
William ("Bill") Hoagland, was the man who explained
the situation to Domenici before the senator reluctantly made
his phone call. Hoagland had also been counseling me.
He was truly the man in the
middle. He had feared it would come to this and knew it had when
the Washington Post printed an article in which Senator McCain
had cleverly made the issue not the Senate,s, and his own, behavior,
but mine.[2] McCain complained that I had used a pseudonym, "Spartacus,"
when writing the essay and argued it was not "correct journalism"
for a reporter to protect my anonymity. Hoagland and I, and almost
certainly McCain, knew that in the culture of the US Senate,
the outing would have serious consequences for me. In fact, as
soon I arrived at work the day the article McCain had inspired
appeared, Hoagland told me, "you need to get out of your
office; you don't want to be able to answer your phone. Go home."
Hoagland had worked for Domenici
for twenty years and knew him well; he was sure Domenici would
be boiling after reading the Post article. He was right. Even
though McCain and Domenici were not friendly and Domenici probably
relished the scorn my own essay directed at McCain, the Post
article fingered me as the staffer who was criticizing not just
McCain but literally scores of senators, all of whom would resent
my descriptions of them. Domenici had to find a way to disassociate
himself from what his own staffer had done; nothing better for
that than a quick and public firing. Hoagland feared Domenici
would pick up the phone that very morning to do just that. Hoagland
wanted to talk to the senator first and, if he could, change
his mind.
Hoagland had a serious problem.
This was not the first time I had caused trouble. In the past,
I had written various reports and essays using the "Spartacus"
pseudonym. Each addressed Congress or the armed forces, handling
of the defense budget. The Spartacus studies were controversial;
Pentagon spokesmen usually spurned them as "all wrong."
But they were detailed, footnoted, and documented, and the Pentagon's
denials were suspiciously data free and self-serving.
It would have been much easier
if the senator had been willing to release my studies as official
Budget Committee reports, but that was not in the cards. Domenici
was certainly not going to release anything critical of his senate
colleagues, Republican or Democrat, and he also had real problems
with my criticizing the Pentagon. Domenici carefully nurtured
his relationship with top generals and senior civilian administrators
there. They were essential facilitators of the pork process that
fostered Domenici's "Saint Pete" image in New Mexico.
Critical reports from his Budget Committee staff would put sand,
not grease, on the pork skids. He wanted no part of that.
Hoagland knew I was writing
these Spartacus reports and essays. Any other staff director
on Capitol Hill would have prohibited what I was doing, pseudonym
or not. But he believed what I was writing things that needed
to be said, and he did nothing to stop me.
But now as "Spartacus"
I had pushed things past the limit. The new essay about Congress,
post September 11 behavior was long, detailed, and heavily footnoted,
like the earlier reports, and it also used some angry rhetoric.
It played on the 1939 Frank Capra movie, "Mr. Smith Goes
to Washington" (about homespun political heroics in the
US Senate) and was titled "Mr. Smith Is Dead." In the
text, senator after senator, regardless of party, ideology, or
seniority, was exposed as a hypocrite. The entire Senate Armed
Services Committee was termed "The Quintessence of Irrelevance
and Self-Protection." Even President Bush was joined with
Senator McCain as a "pork enabler." The essay's tone
was out of line, but it said things that needed saying. Hoagland
believed I should be given a serious talking to, but not a public
firing.
When Hoagland met with Domenici
to discuss the situation, the senator wanted him to fire me.
He refused. It was not in his nature to be argumentative with
Domenici, but Hoagland's own sense of decency told him Domenici's
bidding was too much. Instead, he suggested a compromise: keep
the staffer on for a few months, and then let him step down.
Domenici was adamant; I was too far out of line. If Hoagland
could engineer a quiet resignation, OK, but it had to be soon,
not some months off.
After a short hiatus, I did
resign, and the press hardly noticed. Senators Domenici, McCain,
Stevens, and others went on with business as usual. I found a
new job with a Washington think tank, the Center for Defense
Information, and wrote this book.
I have described here the "highlights"
of my last days as a US Senate staffer because they show what
makes people tick on Capitol Hill at the start of the twenty-first
century.
When I wrote the essay "Mr.
Smith Is Dead" in January, 2002, I knew it would cause a
problem. I made a conscious decision to detail the atrocious
behavior in Congress in the aftermath of September 11, 2001,
in the hope that public exposure would cause some elected member
to exercise his or her conscience and take up arms parliamentary
ones against business as usual. My hope was not realized. The
Senate's behavior, and that of the House of Representatives,
did not improve; it worsened.
For more than thirty-one years,
I have watched Congress evolve into a place where ambition and
partisanship reign supreme, where members care little for substance
and most for appearances.
The effect on our national
security may not yet be apparent to most Americans, but it is
alarming. Congress is not just dithering with national security
-- it is trashing it. The military effectiveness American forces
have shown in two wars against Iraq is not because of, but despite,
Congress, work. U.S. armed forces are not supported at the level
most Americans have been led to expect. The leadership in Congress
and in the Pentagon work to pursue personal and career agendas,
not national security.
Winslow T. Wheeler is a visiting senior fellow at the
Center for Defense Information. He contributed an essay on the
defense budget to CounterPunch's new book: Dime's
Worth of Difference. Wheeler's book, "The
Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security,"
is published by the Naval Institute Press in October.
Notes
[1] Michael Coleman, "Domenici
Staffer Fired over Essay," Albuquerque Journal, 19
May 2002.
[2] Howard Kurtz, "McCain,
Rising Up against Spartacus,," Washington Post,
13 May 2002, C-1.
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