In a political climate where Democrats everywhere — from
Harry Reid to Barbara Boxer — face a political tsunami, one member
of the party faithful remains safe from the storm, set to cruise
easily to yet another reelection. That Democrat is Jim McDermott,
who ought to be forever known as “Baghdad Jim,” and for reasons
that, in a sane universe, would forever keep him from being
reelected. Only in a congressional district like Washington state’s
District 7 — dominated by wealthy, white Seattle liberals — could
this be possible.
So protected is McDermott that there isn’t even a
Republican running against him, and the independent challenger, Bob
Jeffers-Schroder, is on record conceding “there is no way” he will
defeat McDermott. “I’m not at all concerned with trying to win,”
says Jeffers-Schroder.
Perhaps that’s a badge of honor. Given McDermott’s views
and actions, and, nonetheless, repeated massive re-election, who
would want the approval of these voters?
There are many ways to illustrate McDermott’s wild
liberalism, but one case continues to say it all. It was September
2002. The Bush administration was making its case and preparing
America and the world for war in Iraq. So, three anti-war Democrat
congressmen traveled to Iraq, hoping to dissuade military action.
They were Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. David Bonior (D-Mich.),
and Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.).
All three were predictable anti-war, anti-Bush votes. If
Saddam Hussein was fishing for suckers, McDermott and Bonior in
particular would be among the very best candidates in Congress.
McDermott, in particular, was primed.
Naturally, Saddam’s aides could not wait to get a
microphone in front of McDermott. More than that, they had a studio
ready. And it was there, on September 29, 2002, that the Iraqi
government eagerly positioned McDermott for an interview with ABC
News’ “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.
Right on cue, McDermott mouthed the Iraqi Baathist Party
line. When Stephanopoulos asked McDermott if he stood by his claim
that President Bush “will lie to the American people in order to
get us into war,” the congressman held firm: “I think the president
would mislead the American people.” The Seattle congressman deduced
that Bush and his administration would “give out
misinformation.”
When Stephanopoulos asked for evidence, McDermott simply
reaffirmed his conviction that the president was a deceiver.
Stephanopoulos, a former top Clinton aide, was surprised when
McDermott suspended the same suspicion toward his endearing hosts
in Iraq. After all, Saddam had lied for decades. And yet, whereas
Bush allegedly operated on duplicity, McDermott said of Saddam and
his regime: “I think you have to take the Iraqis on their face
value.”
Part of that “face value,” said McDermott, was for the
Bush administration to understand that Saddam, after a decade-plus
of obstructing U.N. inspectors, was now suddenly supportive of
“unfettered inspections.” The Iraqis, added McDermott, had given
him “assurances” of that.
The three congressmen were a hit in Iraq. Every stop on
their goodwill tour was circulated by Saddam’s Ministry of
Information, which published their itinerary in
government-controlled newspapers, television, radio, and on the
ministry’s website in both Arabic and English. As Stephen Hayes
reported at the time, these stories were headlined on front-pages
and news broadcasts; they ran aside other celebratory Iraqi news
items, such as stories on the “criminal Bush,” on U.S. “war crimes”
against Iraqi children, on how the “U.S. embargo” starved Iraqi
infants and killed seniors, on non-stop U.S. military “war waging”
around the world, on heroic Palestinian suicide bombers,
and how Jews were responsible for 9/11.
It was quite a display. Even friendly news sources in
America seemed embarrassed by the congressmen. A CNN reporter asked
McDermott if he minded being exploited for propaganda by Saddam’s
tyrannical regime. “If being used means that we’re highlighting the
suffering of Iraqi children, or any children,” replied the
congressman, “then, yes, we don’t mind being used.”
McDermott’s fellow Democrats, from the head of the DNC to
Bill Clinton to John Kerry to leading members of Congress like Dick
Gephardt, Barney Frank, and even Nancy Pelosi, were stunned, some
into complete silence, others into brief replies of “no
comment.”
And the congressman wasn’t finished. Upon his return from
Iraq, speaking on PBS’s “News Hour,” McDermott said Congress was
faced with a war authorization that was really about whether “the
United States can decide to wipe out another country’s leader
whenever we don’t like them.” The interviewer, Gwen Ifill, was
compelled to ask McDermott to respond to the charge that he had
been “an apologist for Saddam Hussein.” McDermott said that those
making such accusations “are stupid.”
So blatant and successful had been the manipulation by
Saddam that conservatives around the country began derisively
calling McDermott “Baghdad Jim.” But even they could not have known
just how badly McDermott and friends had been rolled.
As the Associated Press would report six years later in a
March 2008 story, based on the verdict of federal prosecutors,
Saddam’s intelligence agency had “secretly financed” (AP’s words)
the trip by the three U.S. lawmakers. Prosecutors determined that
the trip was arranged by a Middle Easterner in Detroit, named
Muthanna Al-Hanooti, who was charged with setting up the trip “at
the behest of Saddam’s regime.” Iraqi intelligence officials,
prosecutors learned, reportedly paid for the trip through an
intermediary, and rewarded Al-Hanooti with two million barrels of
Iraqi oil.
Prosecutors said they had “no information whatsoever” that
the three Congressmen were aware that the trip was underwritten by
Saddam’s henchmen. “Obviously, we didn’t know it at the time,”
explained McDermott. “The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi
children. That’s the only reason we went.”
McDermott’s spokesman said the congressman had been
invited to Iraq by a Seattle “church group,” and had been unaware
of Iraqi funding.
What’s fascinating about this from my perspective, and
historically, is that it’s a rare case of War on Terror duping that
bears a strict resemblance to Cold War duping. What I mean by that
is this:
During the Cold War, communists, from Moscow to New York,
excelled at carefully manipulating liberals and progressives,
prompting these
dupes to say and do some really dumb things. These things
served the interests of our adversaries, namely, the Soviet Union
and international communism. To the contrary, during the War on
Terror, when a Ted Kennedy, a John Kerry, a Dick Durbin, a Harry
Reid, a Pete Stark, a Jimmy Carter, a Maxine Waters, a Barbara Lee,
a John Murtha, a Barack Obama, an Al Gore, or some other liberal,
said something really dumb that served the interests of our
adversaries, it was rarely (if ever) prompted by those adversaries.
Typically, they uttered some irresponsibly outrageous inanity
because they couldn’t control their boiling rage at George W. Bush.
The enemy, whether Saddam, Ahmadinejad, Osama Bin Laden, or
Al-Qaeda, no doubt thrilled in these statements, but they didn’t
carefully prompt the statements.
What’s so striking about the Baghdad Jim example, however,
is that here was a rare War on Terror case where the statements
were triggered, at least in part, through attempted manipulation by
the enemy, to the point that Saddam and friends rolled out the red
carpet — and opened the TV studios. In other words, the McDermott
case sets a precedent for modern-day dupery. In a sane world, or,
more specifically, a sane congressional district, voters would be
so embarrassed by such actions that they wouldn’t reelect their
congressman.
Alas, apparently, Washington’s 7th district functions amid
some other plane of existence. Jim McDermott is safe, no longer
ensconced by the cold embrace of a dead Saddam Hussein but by the
warm, open arms of Seattle’s progressives.
