Rice appeared before the Senate in defense of President Bush’s tactical change in Iraq, and quickly encountered Boxer.
“Who pays the price? I’m not going to pay a personal price,” Boxer said. “My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young.”
Then, to Rice: “You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family.”
Andrew Sullivan calls Boxer “Vile”, I say he’s being too kind,
That’s the only word to describe Senator Boxer’s ad feminam attack on Condi Rice yesterday. There was a trace of homophobia to the smear as well. This kind of attack is like the “chickenhawk” smear and worthy of low-life liars like Michael Moore. We really should be able to debate national security without the politics of personal destruction. The senator should apologize. Today.
When Sullivan’s liberal readers objected, with arguments along these lines,
Asking if Dr. Rice can truly understand what the parents are preparing to do is not wrong in my book. It is bringing up a real issue. For many people this is not an abstract discussion of geo political strategy it involves Death. That is real!
Sullivan, rightly, stands his ground,
Sorry, but I’m not buying this for a second. Boxer’s was the kind of cheap shot that makes substantive discourse impossible. Boxer was questioning Rice as a senator questioning a secretary of state. Their family relationships are utterly irrelevant to the point at hand, i.e. the current Iraq strategy. As readers know, I tend to agree with Boxer on this. But I’m not going to personalize it. What Boxer was clearly doing was insinuating that those without children or without children in combat somehow have less moral and political standing to debate this issue. If that’s true, why allow any non-soldier to have a say on this? Why allow women an equal say, since men comprise an overwhelming majority of combat soldiers? Since openly gay people are barred from the military, are they also to be told they have less standing to debate? Once you go down this line of emotional and mroal blackmail, you end up with virtually no one being able to debate the central issue at hand without Sheehan-style idiocy. Boxer’s remark was a piece of slime. And she should apologize.
Yes it was slime, plain and simple.
Can you imagine if a Republican Senator said something like that to a liberal? It would be the lead story on the 6pm news. The New York Times would be calling for their resignation. The Kos crazies would be, well, crazy. When a liberal does it, the media just skates right past it. Don’t want to make a fuss about it, doesn’t advance their agenda. The hypocrisy is stunning, though not surprising.
This is really deplorable on the part of Barbara Boxer.