Frank Rich:

“As soon as President Bush rolled out his new war on Iraq, the Democrats in Washington demanded a debate, and debates they got, all right. There was the debate between Matt Drudge and Barbra Streisand about the provenance of an antiwar quote she recited at a party fund-raiser. There was the debate about whether Jim McDermott, Democratic Congressman from Washington, should have come home from Baghdad before announcing on TV that we can take Saddam Hussein’s promises at “face value.” There were the debates about why Al Gore took off his wedding ring, why Robert Torricelli took a Rolex, and why Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson took noisy offense at so benign and popular a Hollywood comedy as Barbershop.

But as for the promised debate about Iraq, it became heated only after Congressional approval of the president’s mission was a foregone conclusion.

It’s the War, Stupid

By FRANK RICH

As soon as President Bush rolled out his new war on Iraq, the Democrats in Washington demanded a debate, and debates they got, all right. There was the debate between Matt Drudge and Barbra Streisand about the provenance of an antiwar quote she recited at a party fund-raiser. There was the debate about whether Jim McDermott, Democratic Congressman from Washington, should have come home from Baghdad before announcing on TV that we can take Saddam Hussein’s promises at “face value.” There were the debates about why Al Gore took off his wedding ring, why Robert Torricelli took a Rolex, and why Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson took noisy offense at so benign and popular a Hollywood comedy as “Barbershop.”

But as for the promised debate about Iraq, it became heated only after Congressional approval of the president’s mission was a foregone conclusion. Though the party’s leaders finally stepped up, starting with Mr. Gore, most of them seemed less concerned with the direction of the nation in 2002 than with positioning themselves for the White House in 2004 (or ’08). They challenged the administration’s arrogant and factually disingenuous way of pursuing its goal, then beat a hasty retreat to sign on to whatever fig-leaf language they could get into the final resolution. (Mr. Gore, after his Sept. 23 Iraq speech, dropped the subject altogether.)

Even at their most forceful they failed to state their qualified, Bush-lite case for war with anything like the persistence, eloquence and authority of Chuck Hagel, the Republican Vietnam War hero. Speaking with almost mournful resignation from the floor on Wednesday, the senator was naked in his doubts about what lies ahead. “We should not be seduced by the expectations of `dancing in the streets’ after Saddam’s regime has fallen,” he said.

That Democratic leaders added so little to the discussion is attributed to their intimidation by the president’s poll numbers, their fear of being branded unpatriotic and their eagerness to clear the decks (whatever the price) to return to the economy, stupid, before Election Day. None of these motives constitute a profile in courage; no wonder George W. Bush was emboldened to present himself as the new John F. Kennedy in his Iraq speech on Monday night.

Agree with him or not, the president does stand for something. He led, and the Democrats followed. The polls, far from rationalizing the Democrats’ timidity, suggest they might have won a real debate had they staged one. Support for an Iraq war is falling, with the dicey 51 percent in favor in the latest CNN/USA Today survey dropping to a Vietnam-like 33 percent support level if there are 5,000 casualties, as there could well be. But even so, the Democratic leaders never united around a substantive alternative vision to the administration’s pre-emptive war against the thug of Baghdad. That isn’t patriotism, it’s abdication.

Perhaps more than he intended, Tom Daschle summed up the feeble thrust of his party’s opposition on “Meet the Press” last weekend when he observed, “The bottom line is . . . we want to move on.” Now his wish has come true � but move on to what? The dirty secret of the Democrats is that they have no more of an economic plan than they had an Iraq plan.” NY Times op-ed