I wasn’t aware that the office of Senate Majority Leader was that powerful a position. Why send anthrax spores to him? I thought that in terms of political power, the Majority Leader was like the Minority Whip, or the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, or something. Purely honorary, in other words. Looks good on a resume.
What message does the Evil Anthrax Mastermind think he’s sending here? “Down with the Yankee Imperialist holders of minor positions in the government”?
Probably because Daschle is a bit more high-profile than most Congressmen. As Senate Majority Leader he is presently the nation’s #1 Democrat (since the Prez. and Speaker of the House are both Republicans).
You cannot pass new legislation without going through Daschle. Budget stuff gets voted on regardless, but the Majority Leader in the Senate is the most powerful Senator because he sets the agenda. Sen. Lott, the immediate past Majority Leader, sometimes excercized this power by refusing to bring things he opposed to a vote, that is, things that might have passed. Things that won’t go anywhere are spiked all the time, but rarely does the Majority Leader seriously delay measures that are close to passing.
First, Ducky, the Senate Majority Leader isn’t a minor player in Washington–especially in light of the unusually close bipartisan coalition that has shaped America’s military/political response to the Sept. 11 massacre.
To answer in a GQ-approved way, my guess is the perps targeted Daschle because they hope to break up the consensus between Democrats and Republicans. They want to foment political instability, self-doubt, and finger pointing so as to paralyze American foreign policy. What better way than to target the opposition party in America? That said, the terrorists also are a sadistic lot and enjoy seeing their enemy squirm.
I’ve said from day one that these terrorists are not fighting for Islam. Rather, Islam is a rallying cry that hides and makes possible their economic, political and territorial ambitions.
Don’t poo poo the position of Majority Leader. Although it’s not as high a position as, say Pro Temp of the Senate (which is 3rd in the line of presidential succession after VP and House Speaker). From the Senate website:
Of primary importance to the position is “first recognition,” meaning that the Majority Leader gets to choose who starts the debate – and can thus serve as a rudder for steering leglislation. The Whips (officially called “Assistant Majority/Minority Leaders,” on the other hand, are relatively honorary (though very work- and responsibility-intensive) positions.
So, Majority Leader is a powerful job within the Senate, but in the grand scheme of things: yes, he’s relatively expendible, and therefore not the best target (from the terrorists’ POV) to go after. Maybe that’s what you were getting at, DDG?
As carnivorousplant said, publicity. Sending them to, say, the Delegate from Guam, would make headlines in his home district, but hardly make lead story on CNN and FOX. The SML is a high-visibility newsmaker. Similarly why the mailings to various mass media outlets. Disproportionate public-visibility-to-actual-damage ratio.
(And also, who knows, maybe they are using these as ways of gauging how effective various delivery systems are, or how virulent their strain really is…)
The SML is the topkick of the Upper House of Congress, with control over his delegation’s budget, staff, committee assignments, etc. in the body in charge of ratifying treaties and presidential appointments. Hardly an “honorary” position. (Now, the Senate’s two de-jure presiding officers, the VP of the US and the President Pro-Tem, THOSE are essentially ceremonial posts.) So it’s a way of hitting close to the spheres of power.
Well, it’s your country but this is how I see Daschle’s importance:
He’s the conduit between the White House and Congress, specifically, in this current situation, he links with Cheney (as Powell deals with overseas so Cheney does with domestic). What that means is that the Democratic majority have a real time line into the White House and vice versa.
That’s important because it’s essential to present as unified, as collective a front as possible to the public with everyone being seen to sing from the same hymn sheet. The Cheney-Daschle connection means politicians are kept informed (no sudden surprises) and everyone’s thoughts are passed along the line. For example, Bush announcing emergency economic moves would have been cleared with Daschle (via Cheney) before being announced so there is no unsightly disagreement. Also, any reservations about how things are going / specific concerns / etc. would be passed this way instead of being made public.
No one wants to be seen making (direct) party political capital out of the situation and no one wants to say openly: “I don’t agree with what we are doing just now” so it’s communicated via the Cheney-Daschle link.
As for why Daschle ? who knows, it was a judgement call intended to further an agenda we can’t yet identify cos we don’t know who did it.
Yeah, but, LC, that’s just so…so…esoteric. What, the fine points of American government, brought to us by people whose style so far has involved blunt instruments and lots of explosions, not Star Chamber-type scheming? “Bwahahah, I will sabotage parliamentary procedure during meetings of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations’ Subcommittee on International Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion, and one by one, like a row of helpless dominos, the fifty states will be thrown into chaos and the banners of jihad will be raised above the Beltway…”
Took the words right outa my mouth.
Yeah, you know, I’d be surprised to find out that an American high school civics class knew who and what the Senate Majority Leader was. So imagine my astonishment to discover that, supposedly, foreign terrorists are targeting him for death. I mean, why? It would be kind of like foreign terrorists targeting the British Leader of the House of Commons. Whodat? you ask. Well, as far as I can tell, it’s one Robin Cook. Wouldn’t you be surprised to hear that, apparently, terrorists who had marked the British Empire for destruction, and had begun by flying jets into the Canary Wharf Tower and HQ Land Command in Wilton were making Robin Cook their next target?
My personal theory is that it’s a homegrown 100% All-American loony who was paying attention in civics class and has a chip on his shoulder about having to learn to spell “bicameral”.
But the letter wasn’t sent the the Office of the Majority Leader like most of his correspondence is. The letters he usually gets in his Senate Office are regarding South Dakota matters. I also would hasten to guess that if you asked people just out on the street in Anytown, USA (1) who is the Senate Majority Leader and (2) what the Senate Majority Leader was, a good deal of them would not know the answer to either. Another thing, I went over to the Rayburn House Office Building (which is near the Hart Building where Daschle’s office is) yesterday and security was tight as ever. My briefcase was searched TWICE and the security guards questioned me about what business I had at the building.
Only shoot at targets that you have a chance of hitting.
The higher up in office you go, the less likely it is that mail will actually be opened by the addressee. You’d never get the President with a letter bomb, but you just might be able to snag a congressman if his letter-opening secretary happened to call in sick that day.
The guy who got his name on the envelope is not the target of this attack. You are the target of this attack. The other targets that we know about were all media contacts. They have far less power in a true sense than even the minority whip in the House. But the chances that the incident would be reported were much greater with them, and with Tom Brokaw, and the Senate Minority Leader.
The criminal biologist who designed this attack pointed out to the other cowards with whom he works that the number of people likely to be affected by their concerted mass mail attack was less than the number of people who would be murdered by ordinary cowardly American criminals on a typical day. Even if they had managed to infect every one of the people exposed in the last two weeks, given our medical system, the number of deaths could never approach the statistical significance of traffic fatalities on Route 95, and people want to raise the speed limit on it. So, they went after people in the public eye. Crippling America is not in their power, but keeping America’s attention is their goal.
CDC, and WHO ought to be monitoring the world for “unrelated” anthrax cases, because the only place where it will be suddenly occurring in increased numbers is among those handling the laboratory strain used to perpetrate the attack.
Tris
“For there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.” ~ Sun-tzu ~
More importantly, it’s not Daschle himself who organizes the legislative agenda, it’s his staff. The Senator cannot possibly meet with all the people who want to meet him, and he relies on staff members and their opinions to decide what legislation will reach the floor and what won’t. There are issue experts, procedural experts, schedulers, phone operators, etc. All play a highly important role in creating federal law.
By taking out Daschle’s staff members, there is the potential, however small, for the legislative agenda–including retaliatory measures against whoever did this–to be disrupted and delayed.
In a small way, it has already worked–meetings between my office and the Majority Leader’s staff people have been cancelled. Whoever did this has joined the long list of people who have fucked over the American Indian. That means that they’re in war with me, now, too. They better watch out.
From personal experience I know that the people on the Senator’s staff are highly competent, thoughtful, and wholly decent individuals. I wish them a safe and quick recovery.
The Russians had an accident with this stuff some time ago.
I wonder if someone didn’t get some of it when the USSR broke up. Would you have to take care of it, feed it or anything? Could you just scoop it out of the jar and into the envelope?
Did it make that much difference which senator the letter was sent to? Surely the main aim was to get it inside the Capitol Building in the knowledge that chaos would ensue. That, as it happened, it wasn’t delivered to the Capitol Building didn’t reduce its effectiveness.
Might not someone with only a limited knowledge about the American system of government assume that the Majority Leader of the Senate is the most important member of Congress? The job sounds important.
It was national news when the friggin’ National Enquirer got targeted. I wouldn’t venture that the delegate from Guam would get less attention.
That said, and assuming that there’s some linkage between the anthrax attacks and the Sept. 11 attacks, it seems that the principal intent is twofold:
Cause widespread fear.
Disrupt the U.S. economy.
While anthrax-laced mail may be unlikely to kill many people, every actual case and each false alarm consumes a substantial output of resources. It’s a type of attack that could potentially reach every home and every office in the nation.
Oh! the joys of being beaten about the head with Google !!
Sorry Goosie for my esoteric bent. I was just trying to point out he is important and a ‘worthy’ target being one step removed from the White House in the chain of ‘command’ in this campaign.
I do have trouble believing his staff were the target, though. Given his position (which, you may recall, I outlined with such clarity and precision…errr), I’d think the Anthrax was intended as having more symbolic significance than anything else.
BTW, the (roughly speaking) UK equivalent of Daschle would likely be the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party, a cetain Mr Iain Duncan-Smith.
It might also surprise you to learn, it surprises everyone else, that Robin Cook has a notable reputation as a philanderer. Strange days indeed.
I thought it was interesting that one of the letters,I believe it was Dashels, had a return address.Forth grade class.
Kind of strange. I just heard that the school is ficticious.
I wonder if anyone has checked that mailboxes place that the terroroist leader was supposed to have spent some time in.Can you send a letter from there to be mailed at a later date?
The Senate Majority Leader is an extremley powerful and influencial office. That has already been stated in previous posts.
However, I have another (and scarier) theory. It is beginning to seem more and more likely that letters were sent to more than just a few people. My guess is that in the days and weeks ahead we we see a large number or people and offices receiving them. Just today New York Governor Pataki’s New York office tested positive for Anthrax spores. Who knows what we will hear tomorrow.
My guess that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Last I heard Pataki’s office believes the anthrax was tracked in as if it were on someones shoes,in instead of mailed. Their thinking maybe the state police,who also use the office may have inadvertantly tracked it in from one of the other sites.
