Shays can't escape Iraq

7/12/08

For left-leaning 4th District voters, what’s so bad about Rep. Christopher Shays? He’ll again face a close race this fall, but is he worth tossing aside?

He’s pretty good on global warming. He supports alternative energy. He says he wants universal health care. What’s so bad about all that?

His biggest selling point may be that he no longer faces what could be called the “Lincoln Chaffee factor.” Chaffee, the moderate Republican who represented deep-blue Rhode Island in the Senate until 2006, faced anguished voters that year who, he said, wanted to support him but couldn’t bring themselves to vote for continued Republican leadership. Beloved or not, Chaffee was tossed aside.

Shays faced a similar problem. He’s never been much good in the arch-villain role, but he was an obstacle standing in the way of getting the GOP goon squad of Tom DeLay, et al., out of power.
But he squeaked through the past two races, and now the impetus driving the “Get Shays” movement has been lost — the Democrats already won.

With zero danger of a GOP resurgence that would once again shift congressional leadership, voters can again take a close look at the contenders. And Shays, it’s true, looks good on a whole list of issues. Also, his contention that Republican moderates are a group worth having around isn’t without merit.

But then there’s the issue he’d love to go away, but won’t. He’s hoping, he says, the war in Iraq won’t be as big an issue as the past two races.

His hopes are misplaced.

As long as he keeps with the fantasy that Iraq is going, in his words, “incredibly well,” he will continue to be haunted by the war’s failures.

In a recent visit with this newspaper’s editorial board, Shays lauded, for what may have been the millionth time, the progress of the Iraqi military, and praised that country’s political advancements. All par for the course, if still misguided.

But he said something else interesting. When asked how far away the day is when a foreigner — say, an American — could take an unguarded stroll down a Baghdad street and not fear for his life, he said it was close, if not here already.

But he added that he would be worried about something bad happening on such an imaginary stroll, because, if someone important got hurt or killed, people would be liable to declare the whole thing a mistake.

By “the whole thing,” I think he meant the war — the decision to invade in the first place. And I hate to tell him this, but that ship, as the saying goes, has sailed.

Americans have made their decision about the war, and they don’t like it. Nothing that has happened in Iraq in years has affected public attitudes.

People, by large margins, want out. They don’t want to wait for some magical day when peace will reign and democracy will bloom. They want the war to end, and soon. (See www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm for the details.)

Shays, despite his hopes, will again have to battle the fact that he’s in favor of staying until who-knows-when. Even the Iraqi government now wants us out.

It won’t matter how good his energy plan looks if he keeps supporting a policy that’s getting people killed for no discernable reason. If the “Get Shays” forces need a reason to mobilize, this is it.

Hugh S. Bailey is assistant editorial page editor of the Connecticut Post. You can reach him at 203-330-6233 or by e-mail at hbailey@ctpost.com.