Ed Wood "The Right Stuff" Published March 5, 2003

Political observations

I have been watching the political scene for decades now and frankly have never seen the sort of political divisiveness we are now experiencing. And it does not bode well for the future of our nation.

The Democrat Party held control of Congress for some 40-plus years. The presidential seat swapped back and forth, but for much of the 20th century the Democrats had always controlled Congress. As a result of the two most recent national elections, the Republican Party now controls both houses of Congress plus the presidency. And the only way the Democrats believe they can ever regain their previously held positions of power is for the current Bush administration to fail. Even if it means taking the entire nation down with it.

Sadly, the evidence of this tactic is abundantly clear. All you have to do is listen to Sen. Tom Daschle or any of the group of Democratic presidential hopefuls from the Rev. Al Sharpton, to John Edwards, to Carol Moseley-Braun. They are loudly opposing the president's programs, both at home and abroad, without offering an alternative of their own. Their strategy is for the president to fail, and they will then rush in to pick up the pieces.

Clearly, the economy needs a boost. The administration has proposed a stimulus package it believes will turn the economy around. Even Chairman Greenspan agrees. But the Democrats, to a man, oppose it while offering no plan of their own. For the economy to slip into a deeper recession would serve their purpose better than would an economic recovery.

A great urgency exists in the need to appoint judges to various federal benches. The backlog of cases is becoming staggering, and criminals remain free. Yet, the Democrats are right now staging a filibuster in the Senate to prevent the nomination of an eminently qualified candidate for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, Miguel Estrada, a candidate with impeccable credentials, given the highest rating by the liberal-leaning American Bar Association, and a former member of the Clinton Justice Department. But Senate Democrats are filibustering to prevent his nomination from even coming to a vote! The defeat of the eminently qualified Estrada would be a defeat for the Bush administration, and in the minds of the Democrat senators, that is more important to their cause than appointing a qualified judge to serve the needs of the nation.

Even the fight against terrorism is being politicized. Efforts by the Department of Homeland Security are being ridiculed as being ineffective, although there have been no further terrorist attacks since Sept. 11. There have been many threats, by Osama bin Laden and others, and many warnings of potential opportunities for attack as we have celebrated our national holidays and other large public events. But so far our homeland security efforts are working, even as they are being ridiculed as having provided nothing more than a suggestion for the use of plastic wrap and duct tape. For our homeland security effort to fail would benefit those political outsiders who seek to control it.

Do the president's opponents also hope the administration will suffer a stinging military defeat in Iraq, with our men and women being returned in body bags? I would certainly hope their cynicism and their political ambitions would not take them that far. But if they can thwart the president's program by aligning themselves with France, Germany and the other dissenters in the United Nations, as they are doing, and cause the president to lose support, both at home and abroad, and be seen as indecisive and not living up to his State of the Union tough-guy rhetoric, you have to admit it would be to their political benefit to do so.

Sacrificing the future of our nation, both at home and abroad, on the altar of political ambition is serious business, folks. And I have never seen it as bad as it is right now.

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Ed Wood is a resident of Sparta, TN. His column is published each Wednesday in the Crossville Chronicle.