All's Well That's Wellstone
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Dan Frisa
Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2002The sorry spectacle last evening at the Wellstone "Memorial Service" in Minnesota is just more evidence of the cynicism and hypocrisy of both the Democrat party and the legacy of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn.
His sudden death – and that of his wife, daughter, aides and two pilots – on Friday was indeed a sad and tragic event.
Wellstone was an unabashed liberal, and loudly proud of it.
And he ran a successful grassroots campaign in 1990, unseating Republican incumbent Sen. Rudy Boschwitz.
But to read and hear the memorial speeches and eulogies – from both the left and the right – is an exercise in pure, unadulterated fiction.
Paul Wellstone may have started out as an idealistic politician of the left, sticking to his positions regardless of the consequences.
But that Paul Wellstone left this earth long before his unfortunate and untimely death.
Wellstone was as crassly political and opportunistic as either of the Clintons and he switched his positions and votes on key issues as it suited him.
Here are several examples that belie the posthumous attribution of near sainthood to his tenure in the Senate. These issues run the gamut, including war, the environment, term limits and PACs.
Wellstone signed a term-limit pledge in 1990, promising to serve only two terms in the Senate. His campaign for re-election to a third term is a direct violation of his word.
U.S. Term Limits, a non-partisan public interest group, commented last year:
"It's sad to see Sen. Wellstone announce today that he has been corrupted by the power politics of Washington. The desire for a political career has turned an idealistic college professor into a partisan political hack. Sen. Wellstone has always talked a great deal about taking the high road in politics. Today, we leaned that was just talk. Today, Paul Wellstone personally took the low road."
What's so courageous and principled about that blatant, self-serving move and what was conservative journalist Fred Barnes thinking when he wrote his drippy op-ed for the Wall Street Journal published Monday?
Hundreds of others jumped right in and expressed similar silly – and untrue – sentiments in columns and interviews commenting on Wellstone’s character and career.
Here’s another Wellstone whopper: his pledge NOT to accept self-characterized "evil" PAC contributions.
"Saint" Paul broke that promise as well, with nearly $1,000,000 on his current campaign report, dated Oct. 16, 2002.
But here’s what he promised in an article from the Minnesota Daily on April 25, 1989 – before he decided he liked Washington and the Senate too much to ‘rely on the little people’ back in Minnesota:
"Wellstone is opposed to accepting political action committee money, and said he hopes to motivate the masses with grass roots politics, not money.
‘Money matters way too much in politics,’ Wellstone said. ‘I want to run a campaign where I'll be on the back of a pickup truck in all the small towns of Minnesota.’
‘My campaign for Senate will be very unorthodox because I'm not a millionaire, and about half of the Senators are millionaires,’ Wellstone said. ‘I'm not a professional politician, I'm an educator.’ "
So much for that all-too-rare integrity among our elected representatives as embodied by Wellstone, who always ‘stood by his beliefs!’
Let’s look at that favorite environmental litmus test of the Left: the vaunted and near-holy Kyoto Treaty.
Whoops! Mr. Enviro himself voted in favor of S-98 on July 25, 1997, a resolution declaring that the United States Senate would NOT approve the Kyoto Treaty without drastic changes to ensure the U.S. would not be economically hog-tied as envisioned in the Gore-inspired document.
Now, why would Wellstone have voted against the sentiments of Kyoto?
One possible clue is that Bill Clinton was in the White House and didn’t want to have to face an actual vote on the treaty. Maybe, just maybe, the Wellstone campaign should not have chosen green as its campaign color – unless, of course, it was to represent all the PAC money he decided to accept.
Finally there is the important issue of war and peace. The New York Times recently opined in an editorial memorializing Wellstone that he had "the courage" to twice vote against resolutions supporting armed action against Iraq – one against each President George Bush.
Let’s take a quick look at the Congressional Record and see what our sterling paragon of political virtue did on the 1998 Iraq resolution, during the tenure of Bill Clinton.
Uh, oh! It can’t be … there must certainly be some mistake!
But it’s not. Paul Wellstone "hawkishly" that Iraq resolution calling for regime change and bringing Saddam Hussein to justice.
What was so special and important and threatening about Saddam to earn his support then, but the others both before and after (during Republican administrations) were deserving of his stoic opposition?
Seems as though the senator was playing politics, supporting the president only when he is of the same party. There is simply no other explanation.
None of these clear examples of Wellstone acting in blatant self-interest and politics-as-usual should take away from his energetic, passionate approach to public service.
For that he should rightly be lauded and for that he will surely be missed.
But Wellstone was an imperfect politician.
Too claim otherwise following his death is not only dishonest; it also does a great disservice to those legitimately well-earned attributes that endeared him to so many during his vigorously lived life.
E-mail Dan: danfrisa@newsmax.com.
Dan Frisa represented New York in the United States Congress and served four terms in the New York State Assembly.
See more columns by Dan Frisa.