Barbara Boxer On Condi Rice: No Children, No Cred?

Barbara Boxer uttered the unthinkable this week, accusing Secretary of State Condi Rice of having no basis on which to credibly discuss the Iraqi war effort, because the latter has no children.

This marks a new low in misguided, wrong-headed thinking by a sitting U.S. Senator.

I happened to be dressing after a squash game, and caught Bill O'Reilly discussing this with two guests, one of whom was a Ms. Alioto, I presume a descendant of the once-, and evidently still-prominent political family. I believe an Alioto was mayor of San Franscisco in the late 1960s. In any event, the woman was rabidly liberal, and sustained Boxer's assault on Rice's credibility, then took it up a notch or two.

Stepping back, I really don't quite understand where this is heading. First, we have Charlie Rangel alleging that things would be different if President Bush had a child in the Army right now, and hinting at reviving the draft. Then we have a California Democratic Senator alleging that because the Secretary of State has no children, she has no basis on which to fashion American foreign policy involving combat.

Of course, the logical conclusion of Boxer's, Rangel's and Alioto's contentions are that nobody who does not have male children of age for military service is unqualified to speak or think on the subject of the use of American military power. This is nonsense.

And, I might add, precisely the sort of hand-wringing that brought about America's post-Vietnam malaise and self-doubt. None of these politicians seem to grasp that freedom and liberty are not free. That preserving our freedom in this age of global terrorism sometimes involves pre-emptory strikes and combat in foreign lands. Fewer Americans have died fighting in Iraq (about a battalion's worth, maybe a bit more), I believe, than were killed in that one morning in lower Manhattan, five years and some months ago.

When will the Democrats stop playing the 'faint-hearted global power' card, and start taking serious responsibility for their words? They can't seem to do so for their actions, as they want a non-binding resolution in opposition to President Bush's short-term increase in the use of force to quell the violence in Iraq.

There is, however, a silver lining to all of this. Behavior like this is just what many conservatives expected out of the long-out-of-power crowd of Congressional Democrats. They simply cannot help themselves. With behaviors like Rangel, Pelosi and Boxer are displaying, the odds of a Democratically-controlled Congress in January, 2009, continue to fall. And they don't need to fall very far to get a 2 seat change in the upper chamber, and a 16 seat shift in the lower one.

Sometimes, it's actually a good thing to be able to rely on people to behave consistently. You just need to be patient, and let them hang themselves. It's a fair bet that these Congressional Democrats will say and do things far worse for their own cause than conservatives could ever convince voters would be true, if it were all only hypothetical.