Congratulations to Democrats, who prevailed in their hard-fought campaign to retake Congress after 12 years of Republican rule. The peaceful transfer of political power after a freeelection is one of the most enduring hallmarks of American democracy, and in that sense, every voter can claim victory.
With Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., poised to lead the Senate, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., soon to become America’s first female speaker of the House, Pelosi’s plan to pass lobbyist reform, enact 9/11 Commission recommendations and negotiate lower prices for Medicare prescription drugs during the first 100 hours of Democratic rule is a suitable starting point. She should add to the list the earmark reforms proposed in September by House Democrats led by Reps. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
However, on the major issue of the 2006 midterm election — Iraq and the war on terrorism — neither Reid nor Pelosi offered much beyond urging Iraqis to “take primary responsibility” for their country, redeploying American troops out of Iraq and relying thereafter almost entirely on Special Forces to defeat Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.
The realities of the war on terrorism are already intruding on such generalities. Yesterday, for example. the military wing of Hamas called upon Muslims worldwide to attack American targets because of U.S. support for Israel. Two weeks earlier, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened Europe, ominously warning that “the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt.”
Leading counterterrorism experts say that Hezbollah, which recently thanked Hamas for keeping Israel busy for the past six years so it could prepare for war, may soon begin its own terror campaign against the West as well. What’s the game plan for when new suicide bombers appear on our shores?
President George W. Bush extended an olive branch with the departure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Reid and Pelosi should waste no time in seeking with the president a bipartisan plan todeal with Iraq and the ongoing threat posed by such terror groups. Pelosi was wise during the campaign to disavow the Bush impeachment hungered for by the far left. In view of the threats from abroad, now is no time for ideologically driven vendettas, nor should majority Democrats waste the nation’s energy and their own political capital by unleashing hordes of lawyers armed with subpoenas, discovery motions and insatiable appetites to revenge alleged sins of the past six years.
Finally, there is the long journey from his August primary humiliation to former Democrat Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s re-election Tuesday as an independent. With a 49-49-2 Senate (Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the other independent), Lieberman could have unique leverage as a 50th vote to put Vice President Dick Cheney in the tie-breaking chair on key Iraq roll calls. Thus, might Lieberman be in position to forge a truce between the White House and the new Democratic leadership in Congress, a truce able to unite Americans and focus the nation on the life-and-death decisions that lie ahead.
