{"id":65287,"date":"2002-10-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-10-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2002\/10\/12\/surprise-au-congres\/"},"modified":"2002-10-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2002-10-12T00:00:00","slug":"surprise-au-congres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2002\/10\/12\/surprise-au-congres\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise au Congr\u00e8s<\/em><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surprise au Congr\u00e8s<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t12 octobre 2002 Nous reproduisons ci-apr\u00e8s le texte de Doug Ireland, publi\u00e9 par le site Tompaine.com<\/a>, d’opposition lib\u00e9rale am\u00e9ricain. Le texte de Ireland est int\u00e9ressant dans la mesure o\u00f9 il nous fait prendre pleinement conscience d’un \u00e9v\u00e9nement important : au contraire d’ent\u00e9riner un alignement aveuglement sur GW, le vote du Congr\u00e8s marque la progression d’un courant oppositionnel affirm\u00e9. C’est le vote de la Chambre qui est significatif de cette situation, avec 127 d\u00e9mocrates ayant vot\u00e9 contre, ce qui est une grosse majorit\u00e9 du parti. (Ireland explique dans son article tout ce qu’il importe de savoir sur ce vote, sa signification, les circonstances, etc ; il rappelle notamment qu’il y a moins d’un mois, ces d\u00e9put\u00e9s adversaires du soutien \u00e0 la guerre de GW \u00e9taient 19.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCe que nous voudrions faire remarquer pour notre part, c’est combien l’\u00e9volution des milieux institutionnels washingtoniens se fait d’une fa\u00e7on compl\u00e8tement inhabituelle, notamment par rapport \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re guerre du Golfe (la campagne de ralliement \u00e0 l’administration qui avait pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 la guerre). L’\u00e9volution est compl\u00e8tement anarchique et extraordinairement fluide. En juillet, la guerre ne faisait aucun doute et le soutien semblait tr\u00e8s fort, allant de l’enthousiasme \u00e0 la r\u00e9signation ; en ao\u00fbt, renversement complet avec une lev\u00e9e de bouclier des r\u00e9publicains de la vieille \u00e9cole ; d\u00e9but septembre, culminant avec le discours de l’ONU, GW sembla renverser le courant et assurer un soutien g\u00e9n\u00e9ral ; \u00e0 partir de la mi-septembre commen\u00e7a la bataille pour le vote du Congr\u00e8s, tr\u00e8s difficile, tr\u00e8s disput\u00e9e, mais sur la fin avec un mouvement de ralliement des leaders d\u00e9mocrates qui sembla emporter la d\u00e9cision et verrouiller \u00e0 nouveau le soutien de l’establishment<\/em>, d\u00e9mocrates compris. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tLa presse, surtout la presse europ\u00e9enne, salua jeudi et vendredi dernier le vote probable, puis acquis, du Congr\u00e8s, comme une grande victoire de GW qui semblait confirmer cette adh\u00e9sion. Le Washington Post<\/em>, confondant sans doute les circonstances, avait intitul\u00e9 son \u00e9dito du 7 octobre \u00ab Building the coalition<\/em> \u00bb, avec en d\u00e9but de son commentaire : \u00ab President George W. Bush took an important step toward building a coalition to confront Iraq by negotiating a congressional resolution with House leaders.<\/em> \u00bb (Le Post<\/em> est aussi pro-guerre aujourd’hui qu’il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 anti-guerre durant le Viet-n\u00e2m.) L’emploi de l’expression coalition pour d\u00e9signer le ralliement du Congr\u00e8s au pr\u00e9sident sonne assez \u00e9trangement comme un substitut freudien \u00e0 une coalition internationale qui n’existe pas (Blair ne comptant pas dans ce cas). Mais aujourd’hui, les remarques de Ireland nous permettent de remettre l’\u00e9v\u00e9nement dans une perspective beaucoup plus nuanc\u00e9e.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAinsi va l’affaire irakienne \u00e0 Washington : chaque fois que GW semble verrouiller le soutien de l’establishment<\/em>, celui-ci lui \u00e9chappe aussit\u00f4t. D’une fa\u00e7on g\u00e9n\u00e9rale, cette \u00e9volution signifie plut\u00f4t une \u00e9rosion du soutien, surtout lorsqu’on sa rappelle que, jusqu’\u00e0 l’\u00e9t\u00e9, Washington \u00e9tait paralys\u00e9 dans une sorte d’obligation de soutien \u00e0 la politique belliciste de GW. Le r\u00e9sultat de la Chambre semble indiquer, au contraire, qu’il existe un formidable potentiel d’opposition, qui sera plus \u00e0 l’aise pour s’exprimer \u00e9ventuellement apr\u00e8s les \u00e9lections, et qui s’exprimera s\u00fbrement si l’une ou l’autre difficult\u00e9 surgit sur le terrain. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tVoici le texte de Ireland, accompagn\u00e9 de notre mention d\u00e9sormais classique, pr\u00e9cisant que cette publication doit \u00eatre lue en ayant \u00e0 l’esprit la citation \u00e9galement classique, Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Suddenly Sizable NO Vote Congress Goes For War, But With Objections<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

\tDoug Ireland is a New York-based media critic and commentator.<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe TV blared: \u00a0\u00bbTonight on Larry King Live — an exclusive interview from Baghdad with the man who rules Iraq, Gen. Tommy Franks…\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tOK, it hasn’t happened yet. But that was what flashed through my mind in the wee hours of the morning as I watched on C-SPAN the Senate roll-call vote removing the last obstacle to a unilateral U.S. attack on Iraq. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe real surprise, however, had come hours earlier when the House of Representatives approved the war resolution — despite the seemingly irresistable pressure, 136 House members voted against giving George W. Bush a blank check to go to war whenever he wants. For some of us Congress- and media-watchers who’ve been following the story, the size of the \u00a0\u00bbNo\u00a0\u00bb vote in the House — where every single member faces the voters in just a few weeks — was impressive. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIn a hasty press conference just after the House vote (carried on C-SPAN), the Democrats who led the opposition had reason to crow. Just a few weeks ago, the press reported only 19 Democrats would vote against the resolution. A week ago, it was reported that only 50 would buck Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, their party’s House leader, after he’d stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Bush in announcing support for the president’s war powers grab. Two days before the vote, it was reported that 100 House Dems might oppose the resolution. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBut when the vote finally came, House Democrats stood up against the open-ended war resolution by a margin of 126 to 81. (Six Republicans, some of them in tight races against anti-war Democrats, also voted \u00a0\u00bbNo.\u00a0\u00bb) This was a stunning black eye for the presidentially ambitious Gephardt. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbNow,\u00a0\u00bb cracked Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett, one of the key opposition organizers, \u00a0\u00bbwe can move out of our telephone booth.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tOne thing that explains the unexpected strength of the opposition is the avalanche of constituent letters, e-mails, and phone calls rolling into members’ offices. Many reported stacks of letters three feet high, with only a handful supporting the Bush-Gephardt compact. As Doggett put it, \u00a0\u00bbThe millions of Americans who thought they had no voice have been heard.\u00a0\u00bb And Illinois Rep. Danny Davis, a member of the Black Caucus (which voted against war by 29-4) added: \u00a0\u00bbThe message this vote sends to Americans is, ‘stay engaged, stay involved.\u00a0\u00bb’ <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tTV, however, missed the story of what the next morning’s Los Angeles Times labeled \u00a0\u00bbthe citizen call for diplomacy before war, which seemed equally as loud\u00a0\u00bb as the opinion polls showing an increasingly slim pro-war majority for war. The \u00a0\u00bbCBS Evening News\u00a0\u00bb reported the House vote a few hours after it happened as its lead item, but didn’t mention the Democrats’ majority rejection of the Gephardt deal. Over on ABC’s \u00a0\u00bbWorld News Tonight,\u00a0\u00bb Peter Jennings didn’t even get around to mentioning the House decision until eight minutes into the broadcast — and then he gave it just one sentence. What came first? A lengthy report on the Maryland sniper. As they say in the TV-news biz, \u00a0\u00bbif it bleeds, it leads.\u00a0\u00bb Bleeding in the future apparently doesn’t count for much with the ratings-watchers at ABC. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tHow much bigger might the \u00a0\u00bbNo\u00a0\u00bb vote in Congress have been had the network news honchos not decided on a near-blackout of the Congressional war debate? The Big Three networks’ nightly news shows gave it little or no coverage after the first day. CNN didn’t do much better: on most days it confined its coverage to a brief segment on \u00a0\u00bbInside Politics,\u00a0\u00bb which runs in the late afternoon, while at the same time giving hour-long live coverage to each of the daily press briefings by Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer. The result was the amplification of the administration’s drumbeat for war. PBS did a little bit better by offering short nightly summaries by Kwame Holman on \u00a0\u00bbThe NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,\u00a0\u00bb but even those reports were only about three minutes worth of the day’s debate on the Hill. Given the import of the vote, all of this seems a little scrawny. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIt’s no wonder that octogenarian Senator Robert Byrd (D-WVA) who more than any other member of Congress galvanized citizen opposition to war complained in the closing hours of the Senate debate: \u00a0\u00bbI might as well speak to the waves, as did King Canute I cannot be heard.\u00a0\u00bb Byrd’s was a marathon performance he was always on the nearly deserted Senate floor from morning until adjournment, refreshing himself with catnaps in the office right across the hall from the Senate floor which he occupies as the chamber’s President Pro Tempore (it has a bed). And, thanks to C-SPAN, some of it got through to the public. Byrd told the Senate on the last day of the debate he’d received 50,000 e-mails. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBut Tom Daschle, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, mercilessly truncated the debate when he, too, fell into the White House trap and agreed to fast-track the resolution giving away the Congress’s constitutional authority to declare war. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIn denouncing the rush to war, and just two hours before the Senate voted on the resolution after only 30-some hours of full debate, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) appeared on \u00a0\u00bbNightline\u00a0\u00bb and told Ted Koppel, \u00a0\u00bbWe spent 21 days debating education, 23 days debating energy.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tGiven the solid minorities voting against the resolution, it seems that if the war vote had been put off until after Election Day, or if TV news had allocated airtime in proportion to the importance of the vote, the \u00a0\u00bbNo\u00a0\u00bb block might well have been larger. Voters might have had a chance to hear more that would have changed their views and motivated them to contact Congress. They might have reacted to speeches like Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold’s forceful floor dissection of Bush’s Cincinnati speech. Feingold called it \u00a0\u00bba shoddy piecing together of flimsy evidence that contradicted the intelligence briefings we’ve been getting\u00a0\u00bb in linking Iraq to 9\/11. (Alas, the speech went unnoticed by the likes of The New York Times and The Washington Post). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe morning after the vote in Congress, the Times reported the White House’s plan to install Gen. Franks as military governor of Baghdad following the invasion. I’d stayed up to watch the Senate debate. I was groggy. But that morning it seemed the Larry King Live interview I dreamed about may yet air, and sooner rather than later.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Surprise au Congr\u00e8s 12 octobre 2002 Nous reproduisons ci-apr\u00e8s le texte de Doug Ireland, publi\u00e9 par le site Tompaine.com, d’opposition lib\u00e9rale am\u00e9ricain. Le texte de Ireland est int\u00e9ressant dans la mesure o\u00f9 il nous fait prendre pleinement conscience d’un \u00e9v\u00e9nement important : au contraire d’ent\u00e9riner un alignement aveuglement sur GW, le vote du Congr\u00e8s marque… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3285,3009],"class_list":["post-65287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faits-et-commentaires","tag-congres","tag-democrates"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}