Thank you, Senator Jeffords

One Senator's stand for principle may have saved America

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
05/26/02
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Politics/jeffords2.htm

It was a year ago yesterday that Senator James Jeffords of Vermont switched his party registration from Republican to Independent. Such switches aren't all that rare; there were already five other members of the Senate who had, at one point in their careers, switched parties.

But the Jeffords switch came at a point when the Senate was evenly divided, 50-50, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote. It came at a time when the Republicans controlled the House, the Supreme Court, and through a bloodless coup, the White House. It was the first time since before the civil war that the southern reactionary right had controlled all three branches of government, and they were savage in their glee and intent on trampling the hated free and secular federalist state.

Trent Lott, former majority leader of the Senate, harrumphed that Jeffords had pulled "a coup of one," a curious statement for a man whose party had the Presidency on a 5-4 Supreme court vote.

Various right wingers, frantic at the loss of their grip on the government of the United States, demanded laws be passed forbidding politicians from switching parties. Democrats enquired sweetly if this particular law was made retroactive in order to prosecute Jeffords, would the law also go after J. Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Phil Gramm, Richard Shelby and Ben Nighthorse Campbell, all former Democrats.

Everyone knew that the Jeffords switch would have major implications, but nobody dreamed how big they would be until now, a year later.

The first thing that happened was that the power of Senate investigation fell into the hands of Democrats. Immediately, the phony "power crisis" in California stopped, instantly. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had been told not to investigate or regulate the situation in California, and with Republicans controlling both Congress and the White House, it was certain that nobody would make them do their jobs. But the moment Jeffords switched, it became clear that Senate oversight of FERC would resume, and could lead to embarrassing investigations into the business practices of some of the providers, such as Enron.

The Senate is finally gearing up to investigate not only the Enron fiasco, but the events leading up to 9/11. None of that would be happening if Jeffords hadn't switched. The House is conducting no investigations, not into the biggest corporate crime in American history, and not into the biggest crime in American history. The White House tried pressuring the Senate not to investigate either, but after a slow start, the investigations are proceeding. That wouldn't have happened, if not for Jeffords. The American people would be told that it is disloyal to ask questions, and Democrats in the Senate would have been as powerless as Democrats in the House to stand up to these neo-fascists like real Americans.

Dick Cheney actually did question the loyalty of anyone holding investigations. The Senate was free to ignore that. And has.

Jeffords revealed the deepest character flaw in this administration. There is a very brittle, very cold arrogance about these people, a stance that tries to stifle dissent or even disagreement. Jeffords may have switched anyway, but the trigger event was a really stupid piece of miscalculation, reportedly by Karl Rove. They wanted to punish Jeffords for his open disagreements with some of the White House policies, and they did so in a childish and vicious way, excluding Jeffords from the invitation list for Educator of the Year. The educator, by coincidence, was from Jeffords' home state of Vermont. The award itself was largely Jeffords' doing. It was petty, it was self defeating, it was elementary schoolyard stuff, and it came back on the White House and bit them.

The administration didn't learn from it, and when challenged, still try to respond with threats and bluster. Ari Fleischer's open threats to the media have been widely reported. Donald Rumsfeld the other day suggested that intimating that the administration had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks would result in people being arrested.

Our first real indication of how petty and vicious these people were came at the time of the Jeffords switch, of course. The brittle arrogance came to the fore as well, when Trent Lott tried claiming that because the Jeffords switch wasn't "endorsed by the voters" (like Putsch was, apparently), the Republicans should keep committee power in the senate, despite having one less senator than the Democrats. It was then that the public got its first real look at the attitude these Republicans have that the rules shouldn't really apply to them.

Jeffords himself has no illusions about what his switch meant for the country. In an interview with AP this week, he said, ""It [control of both Houses of Congress and the White House] resulted in Republicans acting as if they had the absolute power to do what they wanted. ... And I felt strongly that you had to have some moderation."

Imagine if, right now, we were hearing all these stories about the Phoenix memo and Enron's "gaming the system", and an outcry for investigation was growing. We already know what the position of the White House is: people suggesting such things are disloyal and should face arrest. The House isn't going to do anything.

A Republican Senate wouldn't have done anything, either.

And of course, had Jeffords not switched, who knows what threats Ari and the rest could have made to the media to shut them up. After all, who would punish them? The Justice Department? The Senate?

Jeffords has given America one last chance. We might, if we're lucky, have open and free elections this fall. We might step back from the precipice. Or vast amounts of money might be used, once again, to control what we hear and discuss, and the Republicans might gain the power they tasted for four months early last year.

Jeffords offered America that one last chance. A chance not to become a grubby, vicious little dictatorship, run by evil, vicious, imperious people who believe they have a god-given right to control our lives and oversee our rights for us. He's given us one last chance not to turn this great country over so it can be reinvented in the image of cheap, tawdry, dictatorial little thugs like Trent Lott, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. and his despicable father, Ari Fleischer, and all the rest of the nasty little coterie of the neo-fascist right.

Once again, thanks, Senator Jeffords. Hopefully, we won't throw away the one last chance you have given us.