A Dole-ful Drama on the Senate FloorOld Bob Dole's Senate came back to haunt in a drama of an aged king on the field again. It's the stuff of Greek drama, played out for free on C-SPAN. Dole, 89, appeared like an apparition in a wheelchair this week in the Senate, his voice diminished. He came to champion a United Nations treaty that bans discrimination against people with disabilities. Sen. John Kerry spoke firmly in its favor. Ted Kennedy, the late senator's son, who lost a leg as a child, also supports the treaty. Back in time, picture the tall, handsome, wry Republican leader in the Capitol's alabaster, marble and art-adorned halls. Now, in a turn of the wheel, Dole sided with Senate Democrats on an issue of social justice. His most important legacy, he felt, was the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act, which he co-authored in 1990. "Don't let Sen. Bob Dole down," Kerry said to Senate Republicans in a floor speech. Of course, they did. But in a way, Dole deserved it. He might have expected it. For he made the Senate a more divisive place, threatening filibusters and employing every trick in the book of rules. Memory can cloud, but I have it down in my rookie reporter's notebook. When it came to the vote, Republican leader Mitch McConnell gave no quarter to Dole's presence. Most Republican senators joined him in derailing the disabilities treaty. Opponents raised the specter of the United Nations infiltrating our lives, reaching our home-schooled children. Very nice words while the world listens. From my notes: Dole kept some Kansas in his bones. He had a World War II scar: a crippled hand. I can say for sure he was the best-loved senator by the doorkeepers, elevator operators and Capitol police in a place that resembled a village, because I conducted a survey for The Hill newspaper.
He saved his withering wit for others. Reporters loved him for it. Dole's charm seldom shined on-camera. To be sure, he was no policy wonk. Mainly, he loved to play the game of politics — and dearly loved to win. In the end, this character flaw changed the world he loved. With the sea change in Republican politics in 1994, Dole went with the Newt Gingrich tide. Gingrich, the House speaker, represented a new radical right, who wanted to shut the federal government down. Dole was a tough partisan on his own; he told President Clinton he would not get one Republican vote for his budget bill if there were any tax increases, as Bob Woodward wrote in "The Choice." But to partner with Gingrich in negotiating against the savvy Clinton, whom he meant to run against in 1996, undermined his own rough integrity. Not in his wildest dreams would Dole alone have shut down the Capitol, his village. In 1994, rock-ribbed Republican freshman senators were elected, including Rick Santorum and James Inhofe. Santorum lost and ran for president, for some reason. But Oklahoma's Inhofe is a force: an archenemy to the science of global warming. Instead of marking them off the reservation, Dole changed the rules and limits of the reservation. Maybe he felt he had to turn hard right to be the Republican nominee. Maybe he was right. But he was wrong, too. That same year, Woodward tells us, Dole attacked the president on the day Clinton's mother died. "That's not something Bob Dole would do," Dole said, when asked. When he looked it up and found he had, he sent a note of apology. And if you asked him why he changed the Senate's soul up to the present day? Maybe he'd say, "That's not something Bob Dole would do." The tragedy lies therein. The old man saw it with his own eyes. As they say in Kansas, you reap what you sow. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM 
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