McCain? Hagel? No, Gordon Smith Emerges As GOP Maverick

Forget about John McCain and Chuck Hagel.

If you are looking for a maverick Republican in the Senate, consider Oregon Senator Gordon Smith.

Smith made headlines last December when he bitterly denounced the Bush administration's management of the Iraq war on the Senate floor.

"I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way being blown up by the same bombs day after day," said the moderate senator who faces reelection next year. "That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that any more. I believe we need to figure out not just how to leave Iraq but how to fight the War on Terror and to do it right."

Predictably, Smith's use of the word "criminal" garnered a lot of attention.

Republicans were furious with the senator. Democrats were delighted on one hand – it is always good to have a member of the president's party unleash on the White House – but frustrated on another, since Smith poke at the president made it harder dismiss him as "just another Republican" going into the 2008 election season. (So far, no serious Democratic challenger has emerged for Smith who, in a poll of likely Oregon voters released this week, enjoyed a 57 percent approval rating among Republicans and a 55 percent approval rating among Democrats.)

Skeptics questioned whether Smith, who voted to authorize Bush to attack Iraq and generally supported the war until last year, was just spouting off or had experienced a fundamental change of heart. After all, aside from the "c" word, Smith's comments were not all that much more condemnatory of the White House's approach in the Middle East than those of Hagel, the Nebraska Republican who frequently compares the Iraq quagmire to the Vietnam war but who can never be counted on to vote for an exit strategy.

On Thursday, however, Smith distinguished himself by going beyond rhetoric.

When the Senate voted on a plan advanced by Senate Democratic leaders to try and begin a troop withdrawal from Iraq within 120 days in Iraq – with a goal of getting all U.S. troops out by March 2008 – Smith was the sole Republican to cast an anti-war vote.

The measure that was considered by the Senate needed 60 votes to pass. It got just 48 – those of 46 Democrats, Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders and Smith.

Two Democratic senators, Nebraska's Ben Nelson and Arkansas's Mark Pryor, voted with 47 Republicans and Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman to block the measure.

Hagel, for all his bluster, voted for the president's position.

McCain was too busy campaigning for president to show up for the vote.

Smith was the only Republican maverick in the chamber.

Smith explained that, while he was not entirely in agreement with the Democratic plan, he felt it was necessary to send an anti-war message.

"Setting specific dates for withdrawal is unwise, but what is worse is remaining mired in the quicksand of the Sunni-Shia civil war," said Smith. "It is imperative that we continue to pressure the Iraqi government to govern."

Notably, on the same day that he voted against the administration on the war, Smith also broke with the White House on the question of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's future.

Gonzales is at the center of a burgeoning scandal over the firing of U.S. Attorneys who would not mount politically-motivated prosecutions. While President Bush is expressing confidence in his Attorney General, Smith said that Gonzales had lost the confidence of the Congress.

Asked by USA Today whether the embattled Gonzales should quit, Smith said, "For the Justice Department to be effective before the U.S. Senate, it would be helpful."

Smith's line was softer than that of New Hampshire Republican Senator John Sununu, who has called on President Bush to fire the Attorney General. But, in combination with his vote on the war resolution, Smith's statement on Gonzales gave him a better claim than John McCain or Chuck Hagel to status as the genuine independent thinker in the Senate Republican caucus.

McCain and Hagel can both be counted on for rhetorical flourishes when a television studio is available. But if you are looking for a Republican senator who is willing to break when it matters with the failed policies and the flawed appointees of a Republican president, Gordon Smith is the one to watch.

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John Nichols' new book is THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson hails it as a "nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the 'heroic medicine' that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'"

Comments (14)

1. who the hell's gordon smith? guess i'll have to read the article...tomorrow...today...

   mccain - mavarick? har har har...

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/16/2007 @ 02:36am

2. "Forget Chuck Hagel"?!!?!?

   Mr Nichols, you are a love-em-and-leave-em type, aren't you?

   BLOG | Posted 03/12/2007 @ 11:43am Hagel Keeps 'Em Guessing by John Nichols

   BLOG | Posted 03/12/2007 @ 08:50am Hagel: Peace and Impeachment Candidate? by John Nichols

   BLOG | Posted 11/27/2006 @ 01:30am A Republican Takes the Lead on Iraq

   Hagel has long been blunter than his Democratic colleagues about the disaster that the Iraq occupation has become for the U.S. The Nebraska Republican was making comparisons between the Vietnam War, in which he served, and the Iraq imbroglio months ago -- at a point when most Senate Democrats were holding their tongues.

   Hagel has now taken the mightly leap of declaring that it is time to "form a bipartisan consensus to get out of Iraq."

   Posted by Mask at 03/16/2007 @ 06:55am

3. Even rodents know when a ship is leaking.

   Posted by crabwalk at 03/16/2007 @ 07:11am

4. if only the democratic leadership had cojones a fraction the size of gordon smith's.

   Posted by katamantulo at 03/16/2007 @ 10:48am

5. if only the democratic leadership had cojones a fraction the size of gordon smith's.

   Posted by KATAMANTULO 03/16/2007 @ 10:48am

   How's THAT for irony? Smith against the war and he's not even threatened with a Dem challenger, while this week Hillary (who's fighting for her life against Obama) is calling for CONTINUEING US presence in Iraq (if not Baghdad proper) and Pelosi (who is worried about 2008 too) can't keep a "No attack on Iran" provision in the spending bill.

   Posted by Mask at 03/16/2007 @ 11:00am

6. MASK I know you're having fun putting Pelosi down so I hate to ruin your fun,but the no attack Iran thing carried no legal weight whatsoever.It was non binding and,therefore,pointless to have in the bill in the first place.She did not give bush permission to attack as you claim.

   Posted by i'm nobody at 03/16/2007 @ 11:12am

7. Posted by I'M NOBODY 03/16/2007 @ 11:12am

   So...first Pelosi passes NON-binding resolutions to end the war.

   then ...she CAN'T EVEN PASS a non-binding resolution to not start the next one?!?!?!

   Wow, she's gone from weak to totally impotent in just a month!

   Posted by Mask at 03/16/2007 @ 12:46pm

8. Posted by I'M NOBODY 03/16/2007 @ 11:12am

   i agree with mask. pelosi and the democratic leadership deserve to be rebuked and mocked by the voters who delivered them their majorities for acquiescing to this disaster of a war. i for one will have second thoughts about voting for a democratic candidate again.

   Posted by katamantulo at 03/16/2007 @ 2:17pm

9. Oregon has a tradition of "maverick" Republicans.

   Senator Wayne Morse (Republican turned Democrat), Senator Mark Hatfield and now, Senator Gordon Smith.

   Posted by hhemwm at 03/18/2007 @ 1:39pm

10. If Senator Hagel has a problem with the Democratic bill, I understand. I just think he ought to offer an alternative version.

    Posted by hhemwm at 03/18/2007 @ 1:41pm

11. Gordon Smith is trying to save his job. He serves one of the most liberal states in the federation and in 2006, with the exception of Olympia Snowe of Maine, all republicans in blue states lost. He knows that he has to show service.

    Posted by Andre Kenji at 03/18/2007 @ 6:07pm

12. The idea that Gordon Smith is a "moderate" has no business appearing on the Nation's web site. He recently woke up to the fact that it's not politically smart to continue to support the war. But as late as June 2006, he was describing the war as a noble fight for "freedom." When he was asked recently if he had any remorse or regret over his four-year support of the war, he said: "That's all history." He still supports John McCain for President - McCain, the candidate most supportive of the war. On other issues, well, take your pick: Smith said as recently as 2003 that scientists are equally divided on whether global warming is real. He has said that his greatest accomplishment in Congress was a one-year tax holiday for multinational corporations that stash money overseas. He said at a recent Town Hall that the Bush tax cuts have led to increased real wages for the "first time since Ronald Reagan" -- ignoring the later Clinton years entirely (and absurdly crediting tax cuts passed years ago with a recent modest increase in real wages after years of stagnation). He voted for a Republican poison-pill version of a minimum wage "increase" that would have overridden Oregon law and allowed restaurants to pay waiters and waitresses less than the minimum wage. He is firmly anti-choice. To compare Smith, who only turned against the war when polls showed 70% opposition, to Mark Hatfield, who opposed the Vietman War when it was popular, is appalling. - Steve Novick, Oregon

    Posted by Steve Novick at 03/19/2007 @ 01:19am

13. Steve, Thanks for some accruate info on G. Smith. And he's still at it! Just last week he voted NO on the Airport Screeners Amendment that would allow TSA employees to unionize. Dispite his vote against workers, the amendment passed. He doesn't seem to realize that Oregonians are concerned about his votes on other issues besides just Iraq. He doesn't get that he has no right to vote his beliefs and/or HIS moral values. This is representative government, and he is supposed to represent the people of Oregon. Not his faith, not for corporations, not for his party. He is supposed to represent the PEOPLE! And he has done a very poor job of that since his first day in office. He had a very tight race the last time out, and I doubt that he will be re-elected in '08.

    Posted by RebelFarmer at 03/19/2007 @ 5:10pm

14. Through the years, Gordon Smith has cast too many votes supporting disastrous Bush policies to be described as a maverick. He likes to portray himself as "an independent voice" for Oregon, but for me it's hard to forget his votes against the minimum wage, voting to abolish overtime, voting for the disastrous war, voting for the Patriot Act, and voting for the bankruptcy bill. His positions have been exactly what you would expect from a millionaire president of a frozen food company. To his credit, he has staked out positions in favor of equal treatment for mental illness, but aside from that and his recent opposition to the war, concern for ordinary Oregonians has not often seeped into his voting record.

    Posted by vedwin at 03/21/2007 @ 12:02am