A “Yellow Dog” Democrat Against Clinton in 1996

By Andrew I. Killgore

When the bumper sticker, “Clinton and Gore Out in Four,” appeared around Washington two years ago Bill Clinton, on a personal level, had begun to lose this Southern “yellow dog” Democrat. Hardly imaginable was a president so lacking in personal dignity and “mystique” that he would be asked, as he had been, what kind of underwear he wore. Even more unthinkable was a president who would actually answer such a question, as Clinton in fact did.

Personal failings already appearing in 1994 look even worse today. It is virtually certain by now that Clinton has run around on his wife, so egregiously that she could not but know of it and feel the humiliation of knowing that others knew. He almost surely has cheated three times to the level of actual fraud on his income taxes, and paid up later only because congressional hearings on other matters revealed his cheating. His choice of friends and business associates reveals a near “instinct” for corner-cutters, as we see some of them already convicted of felonies and others indicted by a special prosecutor and under trial in court.

President Clinton might have been seen as the traditional South’s go-between to bridge the layers of the region’s conservative and hierarchical social system. But he lacked the integrity to be seen as a patron. Instead, disguised as just another Southern “bubba,” relaxed and easy-going on the outside, Clinton is so fiercely driven by ambition on the inside that he is essentially unaware of or uncaring about ethical and moral boundaries. A political chameleon on this year’s electoral landscape, he is a latter-day reincarnation of the ancient Greek sea god, Proteus, who could assume any shape that offered advantage.

But it is not primarily personal disappointment in fellow Southerner Clinton that makes it impossible for me to vote for him this November. Rather it is that he has tied his fate to the uniquely corrupting Israel Lobby, which not only degrades politics in this country, but taints intellectual life and media integrity as well.

More than 100 deceptively named political action committees under the aegis of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), which lobbies in Washington for Israel, buy or intimidate Congress into providing Israel more than five billion dollars in grants and loan guarantees every year. A compliant media covers the clear violations of electoral law by these PACs and shuts off debate by blasting critics of Israel and its American lobby as anti-Semites or, if they are Jewish, as self-hating Jews. Israel’s essential contempt for Clinton, and by implication for the United States as a whole, is such that one Israeli newspaper referred to the president as “Israel’s lapdog.”

It is clear that under Clinton no balance on the Arab-Israel issue that would help U.S. interests can be expected. Rather, an all-consuming pro-Israel bias will continue to cast its shadow on America’s relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds and continue to endanger the safety and lives of American diplomats and soldiers.

The presumptive Republican Party nominee for president, former Senator Robert Dole, may be no prize, but with him you do get what you see. He deeply offended me and other traditional Democrats in 1976 when he ran as President Gerald Ford’s vice presidential running mate. I still have not forgotten his bitterly slashing attacks against a party to which I and most Southerners still were so emotionally attached that, it was said, we would vote even for a “yellow dog,” a common cur in much of the South, running as a Democrat, against the most admirable person running as a Republican.

In 1988 Dole continued to display an internal bitterness when, in one of the presidential primary elections, he publicly accused then-Vice President George Bush of “lying” about Dole’s record on taxes.

His pandering to the Israel Lobby in advocating moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem leaves unanswered the question of whether Dole is strong enough to stand up to Israel Lobby pressure. Equally worrisome is his pandering to tobacco interests in his public assertion that tobacco, which shortens the lives of 400,000 Americans a year, isn’t necessarily addictive.

In spite of these serious missteps, Dole is nonetheless a man of political courage. He has twice called publicly for cuts in American aid to Israel. Last year after it was virtually certain he would run for president, Dole told Washington Postcolumnist Lally Weymouth, in response to a question, that aid to Israel would “have to be looked at.” Dole added that he was and had been a friend of Israel, but that “I will be my own man.” These responses helped trigger an Israel Lobby campaign to sink Dole at all costs.

I sometimes question if I am fooling myself. Perhaps I am subconsciously drawn to Dole because we are of the World War II generation. We were both young officers who fought a “good” war against the Axis, he very nearly mortally wounded and I coming through without a scratch. Is it just sentiment or is Dole really a good and decent man?

On that basic question I believe my mind may have been made up recently while watching public television’s “NewsHour.” Certified liberal Democrat Mark Shields was talking. To my astonishment he said that if a secret ballot of Democratic Senators in the U.S. Senate were to be held, Robert Dole would win over Bill Clinton.

That’s an amazing tribute from colleagues who, although they sit on the opposite side of the aisle, know Dole well, and respect him more than they do the leader of their own party. It convinced me that my instinct that Dole is a fine and trustworthy man is solidly based, and not just the product of generational affinity and shared experience. So for me, like the senators of my Democratic party, the choice is easy.Dole is not only the best candidate on the Middle East issues closest to my heart. On the basis on character, he's the best choice to lead the country.