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DASCHLE DUMPS DAKOTA

United States Senators are supposed to stand for something. Standing, however, implies the existence of a backbone or strong moral fiber. The good people of South Dakota might want to re-examine pseudo Senator Tom Daschle and see if they can find either of these qualities.

Abandoning his first civic obligation, which is to the people of South Dakota, Tom Daschle has run for cover under the legal bush known as 'recusal'. By 'recusing himself' from discussion and decisions relative to the Beaver Park and Norbeck Wildlife Preserve areas on the Black Hills National Forest, Daschle hopes to retain the extreme environmentalists' votes which he will need to pick up on his way to win the White House in the next election cycle. No need for pseudo Senator Tom to formally announce his career plans, they ooze.

Recusal is a legal mechanism for people to remove themselves from discussions and decisions where possible conflicts of interests might be involved. They are meant to keep integrity at the core of public and legal happenings. Tom Daschle has removed this core principle of integrity and filled the void with self- interest. At least he is consistent.

Daschle would have the people of South Dakota and their fellow affected Americans believe that because he will soon be, or maybe now is, a landowner in the Vanocker Canyon area near Sturgis that he cannot and should not participate in the forest management decisions on contentious areas on the Black Hills. What an insult to the intelligence of the American people.

This incredibly transparent insult is only worsened by the fact that Daschle's recusal will contribute to the existing public health and safety problems of these insect and disease ridden areas. He knows the potential for catastrophic forest fires and rapidly widening forest health problems.

Some fans of pseudo Senator Tom might try and make the case, that he surely can't be abandoning these problems for higher goals because if the forest does burn, then his land could be damaged. Don't buy that one. The purchase of this real estate is nothing more then a planned strategy to give him something to try and hide behind so he can avoid the role of a U.S. Senator in the representation of his state's interests on highly charged issues.

Deepening this travesty is his willingness to ignore the national constituency that any U.S. Senator has. Involvement in the discourse and decisions about natural resource management on public lands goes with the territory of being a U.S. Senator.

You don't get to pick senatorial responsibilities. They come with the territory. Daschle should have declined to make such a land purchase if it really was a legitimate reason to recuse himself. An honorable senator would have put his state and nation first, not a vacation spot.

I bet when the good folks of South Dakota elected him, they never dreamed that he could be rendered intellectually and morally impotent by a small real estate deal. However, inaction is sometimes the most action when political environmentalism is at play. Daschle knows this.

There are many unanswered questions that the public might want to pose for Tom the next time they see him, or connect with him via e-mail. A few of them are offered here for public reflection. Inasmuch as Tom has a home in the state of South Dakota should he recuse himself from public policy discussions relative to banking, savings and loans, interstate highway funding, and medicare, etc.? No doubt his votes and decision-making positions affect him or someone close to him.

To use a forestry term; why has Tom Daschle seen fit to do a 'select cut' on his political obligations? The answer is greed. This man will put anything and anybody in jeopardy if it means he can become the Democratic presidential nominee next time around. Nothing is going to stand in his way.

He wants the money and votes from the extreme environmental constituency in this country. He will do nothing to endanger that goal. Certainly a few thousand jobs and families are a small price to pay to reap the political bounty that lies inside the Washington 'Beltway'. Who's going to hear the heartache of South Dakota from so far away. More importantly, who is going to care?

If a United States Senator cannot maintain integrity and the balance of law when challenged by such a simple real estate transaction, then he or she should resign from public office.

~ Rapid City Journal, March 23, 2002

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