Eugene Register-Guard: "Smith takes risk raising Iraq issue"

"Smith takes risk raising Iraq issue"
David Steves, Eugne Register-Guard
8.26.08

Sen. Gordon Smith has elevated Iraq as one of his top campaign issues, highlighting his opposition to the war in a TV ad that began running Monday.

The commercial is a montage of news clips from December 2006 when the Oregon senator drew national attention for delivering what was the sharpest criticism of the war to come from a Republican.

TV anchors, from Eugene stations KMTR and KEZI to their counterparts at CNN and MSNBC, are heard describing Smith “speaking out forcefully against the war in Iraq” and voicing “some of the sharpest criticism yet to the President’s Iraq policy” as one news promo after another appears on the screen.

What made Smith’s break newsworthy, in large part, was that until then he had been one of President Bush’s most loyal supporters of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

But Smith’s ad makes no mention of his previous four-year record of support for authorizing the war and expanding the United States’ military commitment to occupying the country.

Political scientist and commentator Jim Moore said Smith’s considerable stash of campaign funds allows him to run ads that may define him in voters’ minds as a harsh critic of an unpopular war and as a maverick who stood up to his president.

But Moore, a professor at Pacific University in Forest Grove, said Smith is also taking a risk by bringing up his record on Iraq to voters. By emphasizing only his coming out as an opponent of the war, Smith is giving election opponent Jeff Merkley and the Democrats an opening to attack the senator for his history of support for the war.

“Merkley and the national Democrats have made the argument that Smith is a Johnny-come-lately to the issue — that even though he has converted to being against the war, he keeps voting for funding the war. So it leaves him open for attacks or clarifications,” Moore said.

Merkley said Smith has little to brag about when it comes to his judgment and actions toward the Iraq war. Smith “was one of the Republicans who failed to do any due diligence before supporting the war” in 2002, Merkley said.

Smith has said he came to realize the war strategy was a failure in mid-2006, but did not publicly oppose it until after that year’s midterm election that saw six pro-war Republican senators lose their seats, Merkley added.

And since coming out against the war, Smith has a mixed record of supporting its continued funding and on troop withdrawal timetables.

“His entire record on Iraq has been one of political opportunism,” Merkley said.

Smith campaign spokeswoman Lindsay Gilbride said the ad isn’t intended to deliver a comprehensive accounting of Smith’s history on the Iraq war.

“What it does is highlight Gordon Smith’s independence and sharp break with the Republican Party on the war,” she said. “In this ad, we are reaching out to voters of all parties who are frustrated with the failed strategy.”

When Smith delivered his strongly worded critique of the war in 2006, he said it was time for the United States to “cut and run, or cut and walk, or let us fight the war on terror more intelligently than we have.”

Citing the hundreds of billions of dollars spent and the nearly 3,000 American deaths at that time, Smith said: “I for one am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore.”

At the time, longtime war critics such as Eugene’s Michael Carrigan applauded Smith’s conversion.

Carrigan, organizer of one of the peace programs at Community Alliance of Lane County, said Smith has not lived up to his rhetoric by voting against war funding.

Carrigan cited the 36 percent rating Smith received in 2007 from Peace Action West for his votes on Iraq, Iran and torture policy. That was better than other Senate Republicans and even some Democrats. But Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., received a 100 percent rating, Carrigan said.

“The true indication of Sen. Smith on peace is his voting record,” Carrigan said. “Actions speak louder than words.”

Posted August 26, 2008
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