Shays is happy to change the subject

8/22/08

November's election, we're told, is all about the economy. Past years' concerns about war and terrorism are supposedly out the window — voters will make up their minds based on $4 gas and the mortgage crisis.

That should be bad news for incumbents. Tough economic times can be all the reason voters need to make a change.

But one local politician should consider himself lucky.

President Bush isn't running again, and neither of our U.S. senators is up for re-election. So that leaves 4th District Rep. Christopher Shays as the only local incumbent facing the wrath of voters over rising prices and stagnant wages.

But is this bad news for him, electorally speaking? He can argue, as he has, that it's not his party in charge of Congress these days. And he's made enough noise over the years about alternative energy and gas-mileage standards that he can plausibly claim to be part of the solution.

But whether that's true is questionable, at best. He's taken to pushing for loosening restrictions on offshore oil drilling, which happens to directly contradict the position he once held. He reasons that now that the demand side of the energy equation is taken care of — with improved vehicle mileage standards passed by Congress this year — it's time to focus on the supply side.

Never mind that no one thinks opening up offshore drilling will have any impact on gas prices. Just being seen as "doing something" is supposed to be enough.

So despite his green reputation, Shays is giving in to the electorate's worst impulses — more drilling is a damaging prospect that won't actually solve anything.

Shays has gone so far as to take part in Republican stunts like the ongoing dimly lit protest of Congress' August recess. The GOP said no one should go anywhere until the nation's energy problems are dealt with — as though everything would be OK if only Congress was in session.

It's just an election-year sideshow, but even by those standards, it's insane. Shouldn't Republicans be happy the Democrats are taking time off?

But for Shays, rather than facing a burden other incumbents feel, the overwhelming focus on the economy is convenient. It's comforting. It takes the focus off the fact that he has been wrong — disastrously — on every big foreign policy issue of the past seven years.

If everyone's talking about gas prices, no one will be asking why Shays was so gung-ho about attacking a country that posed no threat to us. No one will ask him what five-plus years of his delusional statements about Iraq have brought us.

Of course, Iraq is a moot issue. Violence there is down; U.S. deaths are down. We won! Or maybe not. Either way, we have a shiny new global hotspot in Georgia; Iraq is yesterday's news.

But it's people like Shays we have to thank for the Iraq disaster. American deaths have fallen, and yet still no one can tell us why any of our troops had to die there. Did we achieve our goal? Were the tens of thousands of dead Iraqis worth whatever we've been doing there? To whom? Going on six years in, and still no coherence, let alone real answers.

But, again, if the debate this fall is about mortgages, no one will revisit Shays' remarks about prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. A year ago, in a speech at Sacred Heart University, he said that scandal was about "a military unit run amok" and that it would have been better for everyone if the story had never been made public. The Army general who led the Abu Ghraib investigation, though, this summer said the Bush administration committed war crimes. Maybe Shays thinks we're better off not hearing about that.

Surely he would rather talk about home heating oil. And why wouldn't he? Otherwise, people could ask him about what he said in April 2003, soon after the fall of Saddam Hussein. "We have to succeed," he said. "Failure is not an option."

How's that working out for us?

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.