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Jewish World Review May 30, 2001/ 8 Sivan, 5761
Marianne M. Jennings
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
JIM JEFFORDS, Vermont's Mr. Green Jeans senator, has found the avenue for
moderates' 15 minutes of fame: Do something the media likes. John McCain
has mastered the art of media fawning as he careens down the issue highway
with neck-snapping turns on everything from campaign finance to health care.
Moderates are irksome. Moderate is a classy term for wishy-washy.
Moderate is a synonym for mediocrity. Greatness does not spring from
moderation, except on cholesterol counts. Winston Churchill, Franklin
Roosevelt, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln were not moderates. GE
isn't the performer it is because it has moderate managers. Katharine
Hepburn isn't a moderate actress.
It is difficult to know what comes first, the mediocrity or the
moderation, but the two go hand-in-hand, and the result is Jeffords, a man
least likely to have an impact on history with his place in history because
of a relieved media.
The media are presently enamored of Senator Jeffords. For ratings sake, they
portray a man of courage. Actually, they worship a man who has broken the
Republican monopoly of the three branches of government. They would cover him
playing the kazoo with Ben & Jerry between bites of Rainforest Crunch ice
cream.
Senator Jeffords should heed my grandmother's advice given from the time
I was old enough to play kazoo: you dance with them what brung you. Senator
Jeffords has spent 26 years in Congress courtesy of Republican funds and
workers. Not only did he abandon them, he tipped the balance of power and
turned the Senate over to the hands and voice of Tom Daschle. Jeffords'
attack of principle should have come after the dance. Don't take a corsage
and ignore your date. Don't take money and then topple elections. The kindly
folk of Vermont elected a Republican, not an Independent.
Therein lies some irony, given the whining about elections being stolen.
The Senate today rests in the hands of Democrats because of events that
ignored election processes. Democrat Jean Carnahan, widow of former Missouri
Governor Mel Carnahan, declared that if her husband (killed in a plane crash
while campaigning), on the Missouri ballot against incumbent John Ashcroft,
won, she would take his place. Do we provide for Senate succession in wills?
Mel, decedent, won, thanks to a federal judge keeping the inner city polling
places in St. Louis open beyond closing time. Gracious John Ashcroft opted
not to file suit to undo what was surely an unconstitutional coup d' etat.
So, a candidate's wife who never ran for office and was not on the ballot is
Missouri's senator.
Maria Cantwell, the Silicon Valley mogul, bought a Washington Senate seat,
emerging victorious only after a month-long recount. If a bizarre series of
events brought George W. Bush to the White House then the Twilight Zone
handed the Senate to Democrats who had been staging prayer vigils and Ouji
séances for Senator Strom Thurmond's (R) passing so his successor would be
appointed by a Democratic governor.
Jeffords' voting record shows him as the quintessential Northeasterner
with "socially progressive" votes. He voted against impeachment and has the
following approval ratings (percentage is number of times he voted with the
group's position): Planned Parenthood (100%); environmental (81%); animal
rights (75%); National Right to Life (0%); and small business (41%). He
wants to increase the minimum wage and co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold
campaign finance reform bill. With this record, why the change, just 5 short
months into a new administration? Therein lies the answer.
Moderates and other cowards of their ilk were free to rant and rave for they
enjoyed either Democratic control and/or Bill Clinton cover. Their own party
could never get too carried away because it lacked the votes or faced the
mighty veto pen down Pennsylvania Avenue. If Clinton signed Republican
legislation, moderates had a safe harbor in sharing a position with Mr.
Moderation himself. The Clinton era was a free ride for moderates. With
Bush, Jeffords found himself in that humiliating position of all Range Rover
Republicans: hate that yucky "extreme" right with principles.
Republicans are cursed with many in their ranks who are embarrassed by
the "non-moderates" among them. You don't see this kind of behavior in
Democrats. They toe the party line despite the PETA crowd, the ELF
malcontents and Alec Baldwin. Loyal to the end, they don't tip the balance
of power. Remember Lieberman's sell-out.
Jeffords is now rid of the embarrassing aspects of Republicans that
George W. Bush brought to the forefront. Jeffords didn't mind singing with
Ashcroft in their Senate quartet. He just got worried when they made him
attorney general. Jeffords is an arrogant Yank unable to accept the
principles of a party that nurtured and supported him.
Jefford's jump has
guaranteed his committee chairmanship and the devotion of Daschle. But, dear
Senator Jeffords, there are some downsides to your leap: Barbra Streisand
memos, Dan Rather fundraisers, Martin Sheen tirades, Geraldo generally and a
position in history not as man of principle but, rather, as traitor of
05/25/01: Baseball has not been so good to me
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