You had to hear this on the radio...Dashcle is doing his very best hoarse "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" impression of passion.

This is the best transcript I can find, from The Washington Post:

Daschle on the Seante Floor, in progress:



"...reports of the vice president, the vice president comes to fund-raisers, as he did just recently in Kansas. The headline written in the paper the next day about the speech he gave to that fund-raiser was, "Cheney Talks About War: Electing Taft Would Aid War effort."

And then we find a diskette discovered in Lafayette Park, a computer diskette that was lost somewhere between a
Republican strategy meeting in the White House and the White House. Advice was given by Karl Rove, and the quote in the disk was "focus on war."

I guess right from the beginning, I felt, well, first it was pollsters, then it was White House staff, and then it was the vice president, and all along I was asked, are you concerned about whether or not this war is politicized, and my answer on every occasion was yes. And then the follow-up question is, is the White House politicizing the war? And I said without question, I can't bring myself to believe that it is. I can't believe any president or any administration would politicize the war.

But then I read in the paper this morning. Now, even the president. The president is quoted in "The Washington Post" this morning as saying that Democratic--the Democratic-controlled Senate is not interested in the security of the American people. Not interested in the security of the American people? You tell Senator Inoue he is not interested in the security of the American people. You tell those who fought in Vietnam and in World War II they are not interested in the security of the American people. That is outrageous--outrageous.

The president ought to apologize to Senator Inoue and every veteran who fought in every war who is a Democrat in
the United States Senate. He ought to apologize to the American people. That is wrong. We ought not politicize this war. We ought not to politicize the rhetoric about war in life and death.

I was in Normandy just last year. I've been in national cemeteries all over this country, and I have never seen anything but stars, the Star of David, and crosses on those markers. I have never seen Republican and Democrat.

This has got to end, Mr. President. We've got get on with the business of our country. We've got to rise to a higher level. Our founding fathers would be embarrassed by what they are seeing going on right now. We've got to do better than this. Our standard of deportment ought to be better. T hose who died gave their lives for better than what we are giving now.

So, Mr. President, it's not too late it end this politicization. It's not too late to forget the pollsters, forget the campaign fund-raisers, forget making accusations about how interested in national security Democrats are, and let's get this job done right, let's rise to the occasion. That's what American people are expecting. And we ought to give them no less.

I yield the floor.



I haven't seen a total emotional non-sequitor like this since Nixon held his dog up to the camera. Normandy??

Daschle has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar up to the elbow, and this is the response. Of course he has been politically motivated in everything he has done related to national security, not to mention the economy and everything else.

As just one piece of overwhelming evidence, there is the fact that he and Gore and other Democratic leaders were all for attacking Iraq when it was their own party in charge, and now they are against it. Why? Is Saddam less dangerous now than he was a couple of years ago? Or is it just that they don't want to do anything that goes along with Bush? You pick.

If you really want to prove your point, Mr. Daschle, stop spiking national security and other legislation on your desk and let the items go through for a full vote of the Senate. Then we might finally get to see what patriotic Democratic Senators actually do, and it may not be the course of action that advances your agenda, will it?

David S. Broder says:

Tom Daschle's desire to hold the one-vote margin in the Senate and Dick Gephardt's hope to pick up the six additional seats that would switch control of the House are driving decisions -- even on large and consequential matters.

This is a Democrat talking, folks.

An exercise for the student: Name one major action that Tom Daschle has taken in the past six months that has not had as its primary motivation his own reelection, the reelection of other Democrats, and the destruction of the Bush administration.

Again, from the Washington Post:

The quote Daschle referred to came during a political stop that Bush made earlier this week in Trenton, N.J.



Speaking on the issue of homeland security before a fundraiser for Republican Senate candidate Doug Forrester, the president said, "The House responded, but the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people. I will not accept a Department of Homeland Security that does not allow this president and future presidents to better keep the American people secure."



Note that this is not about Iraq, but the Homeland Security Bill, which is being held up in the Senate.

Submitted for your consideration: The "progress" of the Homeland Security Bill through the Senate. Received in the Senate at the end of July. Please feel free to check on the links on this page to see your Senate at work.