What is the significance of Gephardt/Lieberman's Rose Garden appearance?

[Cocoa]

It comes up so reflexively whenever Gephardt's name is mentioned, but I haven't yet seen an explanation of what it meant.

I have to confess, I have a sneaking suspicion that at least some of the people that express anger at this don't fully know what they're angry about, that it's just a kind of hook to express their dislike of Gephardt and to a lesser extent Lieberman.

The reason I say this is that it seems to be such a conditioned response, and conditioned responses don't involve thought.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

1. It's good fodder for candidates who are out of office

to give speeches about how they were so opposed.

[kentuck]

2. It permits the Democratic Party to say they are not "anti-war"...

even if they should be.

[Cocoa]

8. so it's somewhat symbolic?

It's not really a procedural thing, it's just that Gephardt as minority leader represents the party?

Ok, fair enough, but doesn't the way the actual congressional dems voted mean more than a symbolic gesture?

The votes say that the party was pretty much divided on the war, and that would be true whether or not Gephardt and Lieberman had appeared with Bush.

[indigo11153]

3. It means

That they will not get the nomination of their party. They cooked their goose. Hope they enjoyed the rose garden.

[quispquake]

4. In the Rose Garden...

...Gephardt gave his 'blessing' to Bush allowing the Iraq resolution to pass...many of us have not quite forgiven him for this (since it killed all chances of anti-war Dems having a fair say).

And before getting flamed by Gep supporters...if he's the candidate, I'll be behind him 100%...

[Cocoa]

10. how did it kill chances of anti-war dems having a fair say?

Plenty of dems voted against the resolution. Seriously, I don't understand this point. Even as minority leader, Gephardt can't, and in fact didn't, prevent individual dems from voting against the resolution.

[TheDonkey]

5. It's shameful...

I could see right through bush to tell this war was a fraud and that photo-op was only made mmore valid with those weak Dems standing behind him, as the resident bumbled through a horredous speech.

I can give credit to Kerry and Edwards for at least not participating in the lame attempt to get more airtime on TV, even though they didn vote for the war.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

6. It is NOT a conditioned response

Consider the point at which Daschle had rallied to put pressure on Bush. Consider the apppearances of Dems on talk shows and news programs prior to that appearance. Consider the DLC memo warning that Dems would appear weak on foreign policy and national security if they didn't give the vote...consider the STIFF opposition to Gulf War 1 that didn't hurt any of them..


Gephardt, Lieberman, Bayh et al DELIBERATELY UNDERMINED their own party's cohesive ability to put the screws to Bush and negotiate the terms of any further action when they appeared in the Rose Garden that day.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

7. You got it, NSMAM!

There was still a push behind the scenes by Daschle and others to try to undermine Bush's effort to go to war. When I watched that Bush speech live with Gephardt & Liebermen standing behind Bush I knew it was all over, and I was FURIOUS at those two for selling the American people out that way. They should have rather been thrown in JAIL before standing with that man in support of his actions.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

9. And Daschle's obvious surprise and anger

indicated it was not an orchestrated event to me.

[indigo11153]

14. That's the facts

Jack! I felt the same way. What a sell out! No forgiveness.

[Cocoa]

11. ok, we're getting somewhere

One of the reasons that I call it a conditioned response is that it shows up so automatically, and there really isn't ever the kind of explanation like the one you gave. There's such a disconnect between my having no clear idea what it's about, compared to such certainty of people that they just say "rose garden" and assume everyone knows what it means, that I had to ask.

Now on the substance, are you sure about the opposition to the first Gulf War not hurting anyone? I have always had the feeling that the dems as a whole considered their opposition a big mistake. Al Gore was one of the few dems who voted for it, and I've read that that was a big factor in Clinton's choosing him as V.P.

Gephardt himself said that his vote against the first one was a mistake, which isn't something you see a lot.

And could they be right about it being good for the party not to be seen as an anti-war party? As people have pointed out here, one thing the Bushies are not saying is that the problems in Iraq are because the dems aren't supporting the effort.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

12. Oh yes they have used that one recently with the 87 billion issue

Since Clinton took office with a Dem house and Dem senate, one would be grabbing to claim that vote hurt any Dems but for possibly a few regional Dems.

That is another issue I take with the Dlc...they TOOK the White House with a firm majority in situ. That majority has dwindled and rather than target the communities where they were doing weakly, they continued on their BIG MONEY game.

There are other issues I have as well.

But I would CHALLENGE ANYONE to say that the Gulf War 1 vote hurt the Dems.

Furthermore, Clinton may have chosen Gore based on that vote, but it was Gore's waxing the floor with Dan Quayle in the debates, that proved why he was the worthy choice.

[Cocoa]

13. even if the dems had tried

do you think they could possibly have found a V.P. candidate that would NOT wax the floor with Quayle? :-)

I just heard an interesting take from Gephardt on the dems' congressional losses in Clinton's first term. Part of his stump speech is about how under his leadership, the dems passed Clinton's first budget without a single republican vote, and how a lot of the dems lost their seats over it, but how it in the long term led to the great prosperity of the decade.

So the first question is, is Gep's version of things how it was, and if so, isn't this what we're alwyas asking for, for the dems to do what's best for the country rather than only thinking about getting re-elected?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

17. Obviously Lloyd Bentsen wasn't felt to have waxed the floor

with Quayle. If you recall, Gep can spin that all he wants but it was the healthcare fiasco and the gays in the military issue along with the fact that Clinton was able to pass more of his programs than any president since Eisenhower during his first year that got Repubs panties in a wad...along with the fact that the gun issue.

If Gep feels that way, perhaps he has provided evidence of such for those of us that were not brain dead during that period.

[sangh0]

31. I'm not brain-dead

Not now and not then, and I think Clinton's tax increases had a lot to do with the Dems defeat in 1994, just as Poppy Bush*'s increases led to his defeat.

Look at Gingrich's Contract on America - There's more focus on the big govt, tax and spend stuff than on the culture war crap.

[indigo11153]

16. "could they be right about it being good for the party ?"

No! But more importantly it was bad for America and the world. Repugs may play war for political reasons but we expect more from Democrats.
It was clear that Gebhardt was only going along with the war for political reasons. He was trying to help himself and so was holy Joe at the expense of their party and the American people. They can both go to hell.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

18. Note that ALL the Dems in the Rose Garden had presidential

aspirations including Evan ( my father is rolling in his grave) Bayh

[indigo11153]

27. You know

now that you mention it that's right. They sold out their party and their country for a few cheap pro-war votes. They are slugs.

[Cha]

15. ...I liked gephardt until he went into the

"rosegarden" with bush. Now I can't really stand him.

[salin]

19. Missing from this discussion is the context and importance of the event.

The house had a clear majority to be won on the vote - with no conditions.

In the Senate, however, at least four prominent republicans were working with various democrats to draft amendments to the resolution which would narrow the scope of the resolution: Sen.s Lugar, Hagel, McCain and Spector.

There were numerous efforts going on around the clock.

Then the Rose Garden speech (which by reports Gephardt didn't even warn other members of the dem leadership that he was going to attend). It was a Rovian Public Relations event to show "bipartisan" support for the Resolution - in its current form (it had been moderated a little bit from its initial desired format - but still was considered by many as having too much latitude - including not requiring Bush to act in a multilateral (UN sanctioned) way).

Within hours after the speech - ALL of the talks collapsed.

The three who attended with bush not only supported his efforts, but acted in a way that defeated efforts by senate colleagues before those proposed amendments had the chance to be voted on.

It is widely believed that Gephardt participated because he believed, as nominal leader of the House Dems, that getting the war vote over would allow democratic house candidates to focus on domestic issues in the elections (as if the War issue would just go away). It is believed that Senator Lieberman was their due to his convictions. And it is believed that Bayh was there as an opportunist with future ambitions on running for President and raising his stock as a possible Vice Presidential running mate.

Just simply voting for the War Resolution would not have sabatoged other democrats. Working to achieve Rove's political goals for forcing an up-down vote on the resolution is, in my opinion, a very serious betrayal of other democrats.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

20. Thanks, I was hoping my evil twin policy wonk

would show up to fill in the blanks :thumbsup:

[Cocoa]

21. ok, thanks, but a couple of questions...

If you know offhand, approximately what date did this happen?

And I don't completely get the connection between the Rose Garden and the talks collapsing. How did those dems' appearing with Bush cause the this, why couldn't the Senators simply ignore the speech? Did the speech have a decisive effect on the talks collapsing, or did it just contribute to it?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

22. Well Cocoa simple math would suggest

that if you have 4 Dems in the Rose Garden, four Republicans putting the screws along with the Dems to get a firm answer and Dick Cheney as a tie breaker....

This appearance SHIT CANNED their strategy..plain and simple.

[salin]

23. I don't know the date but I think it was a Wednesday

seriously I was watching the events unfold like a hawk (forgive the nonfitting pun). The talks fell apart that night due to the perceived futility - the fear that bush had bipartisan support - two dem senators plus Zell Miller - enough to just about cover any margin on any vote. There was also a great deal of nervousness about being perceived to be against the president who was still riding high on post 911 momentum in the elections that were less than 2 months away.

These are just conjecture. All I can say by fact is that as of the morning of the speech there was still news coverage about various amendments being hammered out by various senators (bipartisan), and by the evening the news reports were than all talks had collapsed.

I think the vote on the resolution was on thursday or friday (one or two days later).

[Cocoa]

24. ok, I'm getting the picture...

You're saying the negotiations were fragile, and the Rose Garden was a kind of death blow.

That makes sense to me, and I won't dispute it.

Now I wonder how much of this is analysis and how much is fact. I have no problem at all with it being analysis. Analysis is perfectly fine.

What I'm driving at is that it seems odd to me that so many people seem to have concluded the same thing. It seems people have internalized this analysis as being true, to the extent that like I said in the original post, every mention of Gephardt generates this knee-jerk "rose garden" response. Why is it that for so many people this one episode has eclipsed everything else he's done, to that extent?

[salin]

25. Please remember

that many of us since a month prior followed the events as closely as some are following bush's UN speech today. There were ongoing discussions - including a long discussion on the speeches on the floor of the senate just prior to the vote.

There was shock and dismay as numerous senators who had voiced serious concerns about the means of dealing with Iraq and questioned the "immenent threat" just a day earlier - suddenly shifted - they still voiced questions... and then - boom voted for the resolution. The first big shock was Joe Biden - then Hillary - then others.

I think it is seared in the memory because so many were watching each day of that week unfold.

The thing only slightly factored in at the time was the presentation by CIA director that happened I believe the morning before (or the morning of) - at the time it was reported that he underplayed the immenent threat position (reported at the time that he confirmed that Iraq was only likely to use the purported WMDs if attacked); however in the past couple of months more information has leaked out that suggests that instead of supporting the more cautious approach to Iraq as was reported at the time, that quite a bit of the manipulated intelligence (now much of it proven false) was presented. We can't know for sure - but it could be that his presentation along with the Rose Garden delivered a one-two punch.

All that said - we now know one factor may have played a bigger role in the collapse than was reported at the time. BUT that the fact that so many people react with clarity to the event is not necessarily that people are reacting with no knowledge (as in - repeating what someone else said) but are reacting from memory. If can find the day of the war vote, go back to the archives in LBN and GD of DU1 for that day and the preceding three days - I think you will find a ton of news articles, discussions, and threads covering live events and speeches - all with a heck of a lot of people participating. That is from where, imo, the strong reaction comes.

[indigo11153]

28. Very true

I was watching too. I don't think I have any misinformation.
Just remembering it me makes me sick all over again.
:puke:

[Hell Hath No Fury]

26. I know what I saw...

and if you spent a wee bit of time to do some research online (not my job, you're the curious one) you would find news reports supporting our "analysis".

Okay, I lied, here are some links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35410-2002Oct2?language=printer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31884-2002Oct2?language=printer

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1003-01.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1003-01.htm


As to why this episode has left so many put off by that trio, I think undermining your party and selling out your country to support the man calling for an illegal invasion of another country (whatever your motivation) is a pretty damnable thing.

There are defining moments in a politician's careeer, and that was a BIG one for those men.

And if you STILL don't get it... well, there's nothing more for me to say.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

29. For the same reason it has eclipsed everything Lieberman has done

Lieberman DOES have a noble record on civil rights and Gephardt has a NOBLE record on worker's rights....but the DAMAGE done to the party's ability to BE THE OPPOSITION PARTY on the most important vote of my lifetime is unforgivable in my view.

we all know Bush would have gotten his war regardless but the fine ink on this blank check is the issue for me adn I DO forgive those who ended up changing their vote AFTER IT WAS clear it was a losing proposition such as Kerry...but those whose selfish aspirations led to that eventuality are in a class all their own.

One can argue that the Dems are not being tagged with "they didn't support him" but by the same token when they aregue costs, they ARE BEING TAGGED with the fact that they supported him...see?

[Cocoa]

30. I would say the same thing about Lieberman

his role in the IWR pales in comparison to what I see as his being beholden to corporate money.

Picturing Joe in the presidency, I don't see him starting wars, but I do see him making decisions on behalf of his corporate friends instead of on behalf of the people.

But I'm getting an idea now of what this is about, so thanks for answering.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

33. I appreciate your willingness to hear it

It really was one of my more frustrating moments as a Dem ( and as a Dem there has been no shortage of moments of frustration)

[Pastiche423]

32. It was Wednesday, October 2, 2002 (Rose Garden speech)

The IWR vote was on October 10, Thursday/October 11, Friday.

The 1st candlelight vigil in my community was held early evening October 10, 2002. I remember it well.