WE ARE TOLD one of Al Gore’s proudest achievements is winning more votes for president than his boss ever did. However, Al Gore has also surpassed Bill Clinton in a more dubious respect: By his campaign’s handling of the issue of military absentee ballots, he has managed to worsen the already frayed state of civil-military relations and to reinforce the view among our troops that the Democratic party despises them.
Military men and women unanimously refuse to be quoted by name, but their anger is palpable. Even as they are willing to concede that, technically, there may be problems with military ballots sent to Florida from overseas, they are jarred by the inconsistency of the Gore campaign — willing to go to excruciating lengths to count reliably Democratic ballots in West Palm Beach, yet unconcerned and even hostile to discovering the intent of military voters. “It’s a slap in the face,” says one Army officer stationed at the Pentagon. Referring to the protest over the infamous “butterfly ballots,” he says, “They want to let Florida Democrats vote twice, but they won’t let us vote even once.”
Comments in online chatrooms devoted to military matters, like militarycity.com, also reflect anger at the ballot snafu. “The Gore hypocrisy!” wrote one noncommissioned officer. “I am sick of the Clinton-Gore era. We must have an honest man in the Oval Office! Come on folks, voice your outrage!”
Some of that outrage is being heard on Capitol Hill, where a spokeswoman for the House Armed Services Committee says they are getting “tons” of calls from angry service-members and their families. “It’s really heated up,” reports Michael Higgins, a member of the personnel subcommittee staff who has been fielding calls and e-mails. It appears, to people in uniform, that Florida Democrats are “actually working not to count” their votes.
Even before the question of military ballots arose, Gore “already would have brought an undue amount of civil-military baggage to the White House,” believes Peter Feaver, a political scientist at Duke University and executive secretary of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies, which recently completed a survey and study of military attitudes and civil-military relations. “His campaign missteps, such as the careless promise to use attitudes toward homosexuality as a litmus test in choosing the Joint Chiefs; his association with, and defense of, Bill Clinton, a commander-in-chief for whom many service members feel contempt; and his embrace of unpopular nation-building missions — all of these have grated on those in uniform. Even before the Florida mess, Gore advisers understood that repairing his relations with the military would be a top priority. Now that job has become heroically difficult.”
How did this happen?
The rift between soldiers and Democrats has taken decades to develop, but, like so much else in contemporary American politics and society, it has its roots in the Vietnam War. Once Vietnam ceased to be Lyndon Johnson’s war and became Richard Nixon’s war, Democrats often allowed opposition to the war to become contempt for all things military, including “baby killers” in uniform. The loss of Vietnam left a profound mark upon the U.S. military, many of whose members blame politicians — Democratic politicians — for that defeat. The creation of the all-volunteer force in the early 1970s has made Vietnam part of the founding ethos of today’s professional military: This force was forged in the ashes of defeat in Southeast Asia.
The shame of Vietnam was rekindled in the Carter years, when the weakness of the American military was a symbol of overall U.S. weakness. Democrats also trumpeted their opposition to the defense build-up of the Reagan years. Not only did they complain about Reagan’s spending increases, but they derided his simple patriotism and obvious love for the military. And the second powerful myth that shapes today’s military — the glorious victory in the Gulf War — also features the theme of Democratic perfidy, in the form of the partisan vote in Congress on whether to go to war. Ironically, Al Gore’s incessant references to his pro-Gulf War vote may only have served to remind those in uniform of this, while gaining Gore little credit for being one of the few to break ranks with his party.
Finally, the Clinton years have confirmed the irredeemable dislike of Democrats for the military, with the battle turning ever more from disputes over policy to a clash of cultures. The issue of open homosexuality in the ranks was just the opening salvo. The Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment of Clinton further alienated the military from the Democrats, who troops believe abandoned any pretext of principle in favor of the desire to maintain power. “They chose party over nation,” is how one Air Force officer put it to washingtonpost.com columnist William Arkin.
Inheriting a 30-year record of mistrust by the military, any Democrat would have a difficult time establishing his bona fides as commander-in-chief. Though Gore was, as Feaver observes, “the most pro-defense Democrat nominee since the Vietnam War,” the events of the past week have solidified the partisanship of the military and a division within American society that is deeply troubling. While the Republicans are far from innocent — and the rush to exploit the issue of rejected military ballots was unseemly, as was the parade of generals organized in support of the Bush campaign — the larger share of the blame for the sorry state of American civil-military relations rests with the Democratic party.
Tom Donnelly is deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century.
