The Ballad Of Joe And Jane

by digby

There’s a lot of back and forth about whether Joe Klein committed a journalistic error in his reporting on Jane Harman’s vote. I won’t get into that. It speaks for itself.

But I do think Klein may be missing something very important about Harman’s vote. She told Klein this:

I apologize for not calling to tell you that I changed my mind. Your account of our conversation was accurate and I stand by what I said to you. We were faced with two miserable choices. I had those kids on the C-130 [deploying to Iraq] in my mind, but I also had to consider the overwhelming opposition to this war in my district–and, in the end, my responsibility was to the people I represent.

It was a rough week last week for the people of Jane Harman’s district and Klein ought to cut them some slack, and Harman too. One of those people she represented was this man:

TORRANCE, Calif. (AP) Schoolmates remembered Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr. as a gentle jock Thursday, hours after Army officials confirmed the 20-year-old’s body was found during an exhaustive search for him and two other soldiers ambushed in Iraq.

Friends at South High School observed a moment of silence and described him as a “pumped up” athlete who made them laugh and comforted them when they needed it.

“You’d be sad and sitting there by yourself, and he’d come up to you and just talk to you, and say, ‘Hey, how’s your day? Are you OK?”‘ childhood friend Erika Esquivel said.

Anzack, who graduated two years ago, should be honored for “his service to America and for representing South High and Torrance so proudly and so well,” Principal Scott McDowell told students in a second-period classroom announcement.

Outside, the front steps became a makeshift shrine of flowers, flags and balloons, marked with a sign reading: “You’re our HERO.” The soldier’s Web page was also flooded with condolences.

Anzack, an Army gunner, vanished with two other soldiers May 12 when their combat team was ambushed about 20 miles outside of Baghdad. The attack, subsequently claimed by al-Qaida, killed four other Americans and an Iraqi.

Anzack’s family had held out hope for the past 11 days. They had already endured a rumor weeks earlier that he was dead, then said Army officials told them Wednesday that a body found floating in the Euphrates River was his. The military confirmed Thursday that Anzack had been shot in the head, and his body dumped.

Sadly Anzack wasn’t the only one of Harman’s constituents who was killed last week:

U.S. Army Pfc. Daniel Cagle didn’t want to return to Iraq in April after a two-week leave. But the Hawthorne-area man knew he had to go.”He said, `I have my friends there. They are my second family and I’ve got to watch out for them,”‘ said his older sister, Nicole Cagle. “He was so proud to be right next to these people that he fought with. That was the only thing that made him want to be back: To protect them and lead them.” The 22-year-old man’s fellow soldiers said that’s what he was doing Wednesday when he died – leading them on a patrol near Ramadi in search of insurgents.Cagle died shortly after a bomb exploded when he and Staff Sgt. Steve Butcher Jr., 27, of Penfield, N.Y., entered a house. The blast threw the rest of the team back and killed Butcher instantly.

I would assume Harman knew about Pfc. Anzack at least, who had been all over the news and was a big story in these parts — and probably Pfc Cagle as well. I have no idea if this affected her thinking, but it almost certainly affected the thinking of her constituents, who, in vast numbers, want the US to begin to withdraw from Iraq.

I don’t know the politics of these two families. But I wouldn’t be surprised, considering the make-up of the district in which they live, if Andrew J. Bacevich speaks for some of them:

Parents who lose children, whether through accident or illness, inevitably wonder what they could have done to prevent their loss. When my son was killed in Iraq earlier this month at age 27, I found myself pondering my responsibility for his death.

Among the hundreds of messages that my wife and I have received, two bore directly on this question. Both held me personally culpable, insisting that my public opposition to the war had provided aid and comfort to the enemy. Each said that my son’s death came as a direct result of my antiwar writings.

This may seem a vile accusation to lay against a grieving father. But in fact, it has become a staple of American political discourse, repeated endlessly by those keen to allow President Bush a free hand in waging his war. By encouraging “the terrorists,” opponents of the Iraq conflict increase the risk to U.S. troops. Although the First Amendment protects antiwar critics from being tried for treason, it provides no protection for the hardly less serious charge of failing to support the troops – today’s civic equivalent of dereliction of duty.

What exactly is a father’s duty when his son is sent into harm’s way?

Among the many ways to answer that question, mine was this one: As my son was doing his utmost to be a good soldier, I strove to be a good citizen.

As a citizen, I have tried since Sept. 11, 2001, to promote a critical understanding of U.S. foreign policy. I know that even now, people of good will find much to admire in Bush’s response to that awful day. They applaud his doctrine of preventive war. They endorse his crusade to spread democracy across the Muslim world and to eliminate tyranny from the face of the Earth. They insist not only that his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was correct but that the war there can still be won. Some – the members of the “the-surge-is-already-working” school of thought – even profess to see victory just over the horizon.

I believe that such notions are dead wrong and doomed to fail. In books, articles and op-ed pieces, in talks to audiences large and small, I have said as much. “The long war is an unwinnable one,” I wrote in an August 2005 opinion piece in The Washington Post. “The United States needs to liquidate its presence in Iraq, placing the onus on Iraqis to decide their fate and creating the space for other regional powers to assist in brokering a political settlement. We’ve done all that we can do.”

Here was my own version of duty.

Not for a second did I expect my own efforts to make a difference. But I did nurse the hope that my voice might combine with those of others – teachers, writers, activists and ordinary folks – to educate the public about the folly of the course on which the nation has embarked. I hoped that those efforts might produce a political climate conducive to change. I genuinely believed that if the people spoke, our leaders in Washington would listen and respond.

This, I can now see, was an illusion.

The people have spoken, and nothing of substance has changed. The November 2006 midterm elections signified an unambiguous repudiation of the policies that landed us in our present predicament. But half a year later, the war continues, with no end in sight. Indeed, by sending more troops to Iraq (and by extending the tours of those, like my son, who were already there), Bush has signaled his complete disregard for what was once quaintly referred to as “the will of the people.”

To be fair, responsibility for the war’s continuation now rests no less with the Democrats who control Congress than with the president and his party. After my son’s death, my state’s senators, Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, telephoned to express their condolences. Stephen Lynch, our congressman, attended my son’s wake. Kerry was present for the funeral mass. My family and I greatly appreciated such gestures. But when I suggested to each of them the necessity of ending the war, I got the brushoff. More accurately, after ever so briefly pretending to listen, each treated me to a convoluted explanation that said in essence: Don’t blame me.

(more here…)

Jane Harman decided in the end to at least feint in the direction of the good citizens of Torrance California who had just that week sacrificed two of their young men to a war they do not support and which they believe is contrary to the national interest. They are not alone.

Sixty-one percent of Americans say the United States should have stayed out of Iraq and 76 percent say things are going badly there, including 47 percent who say things are going very badly, the poll found.

Perhaps Harman’s vote was a cynical capitulation to the brainless hippies, as Klein implies. But perhaps it’s also true that the 65% who are people like her constituents deserve to have at least a tiny bit of representation in the congress too, even if the much wiser beltway wags think they should allow their betters to make the big decisions while they just send in their tax money and watch “American Idol” — something which I’m sure people in Torrance would be happy to do except for the fact that members of their own families, schoolmates and friends are being killed.

This isn’t one of those issues where you can tell your constituents that you “know better.” The good citizens of Torrance California have proved, in the most painful way possible, that they have a stake in this thing and they deserve to be heard. And I would imagine that a good many of them feel as helpless, angry and defeated as Andrew Bacevich does today. The least their representatives can do is represent them. If they don’t, those good citizens of Torrance (and good citizens all over the United States) are going to find people who will.

.