Jay Rockefeller: The Most Gullible Sheep in the Senate?

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted April 7, 2008.

Read aloud the legislative positions and "accomplishments" of Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller, and you might think you're hearing about the career of some boot-licking GOP White House sycophant: collaborator on telecom immunity, strong advocate of Bush's unconstitutional domestic spying efforts, effusive cheerleader for invading Iraq, enthusiast of preventing accountability for any of the nation's most severe intelligence failures. But that's just Jay being Jay.

It can be tempting to feel pity for John Davison Rockefeller IV. The scion of the American oil dynasty and junior senator from West Virginia only ever wanted to be called "Jay." Like the economically depressed coal state he adopted for his home, the nickname does not immediately evoke sterling silver baby spoons, guaranteed admission to Harvard and ten-figure trust funds. The moniker befits the self-image, if not quite the reality, of the black sheep of the Rockefeller clan, its sole Democrat. Jay Rockefeller: easygoing everyman.

But since the 9/11 attacks, "Jay" has become just one of Rockefeller's nicknames. These days the senator is also known as "Jello Jay," "Vichy Democrat No. 1" and the "Senator from AT&T," depending on which outraged Democrat you're talking to. Most of these newer nicknames have their origins in Rockefeller's performance as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Since the FISA drama emerged as the defining battle of the 110th Congress, Rockefeller has become the face of an increasingly passé kind of collaboration. But it isn't just the administration he's cozy with. Rockefeller has deep links with Third Way, a phony progressive pro-corporate think tank with close ties to the telecom industry. Matt Bennett, vice president of Third Way, meets frequently with Rockefeller's legislative aide for military and national security issues to discuss the FISA legislation and has provided talking points in defense of immunity.

But Rockefeller's sins well predate his current alliance with the Bush administration in defense of expanded executive wiretapping powers and retroactive immunity for telecom firms who broke the law. His post-9/11 career as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee has been one of deepening disgrace and epic failure. As Rockefeller returns to Washington from recess to tackle the FISA impasse, it's worth remembering that "Jello Jay" has been a sweet and refrigerated Bush/Cheney-enabling treat for close to seven years.

"Ever since 9/11, the Bush administration has had no better friend on Capitol Hill than Jay Rockefeller," says author and blogger Glenn Greenwald, who has been one of Rockefeller's fiercest and most persistent critics. "In his position as ranking member and then chairman of the Intelligence Committee, he has been continuously notified of the most extreme and lawless actions by the administration, and has either done nothing or actively supported and enabled such lawlessness."

Rockefeller's habit of carrying the heaviest buckets of dirty water for the administration began soon after the 9/11 attacks. As Rockefeller proudly revealed in a November 2005 television appearance, he understood quickly that the Bush administration was determined to use the attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. Did Rockefeller sound the tocsin? Yes, but not to the American people. Instead, Rockefeller packed his bags in January 2001 and visited the capitals of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, where he shared with officials his insider belief that the war was a fait accompli and told them they might as well get on board. "George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq," Rockefeller told "Fox News Sunday" in 2005, explaining his private diplomacy. "That was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11."

Rockefeller's adventure in stealth personal diplomacy was so brazen and so stupid for so many reasons that even the conservative writer and war-supporter Bill Bennett asked on the National Review blog, "What was Senator Rockefeller doing? What was he thinking? And all this before President Bush even made a public speech about Iraq -- to the U.N. or anyone else."

Like so many Democrats, Rockefeller would eventually claim to have been duped by bad and distorted intelligence. Specifically, Rockefeller blames the conflicting evidence presented in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate -- which he did not read until a full ten months after his unofficial "Get Your War On" Tour of the Middle East.

That the 2002 NIE distorted the truth is an odd claim for Rockefeller to make. In fact the opposite is true. It was Rockefeller who willfully distorted the NIE's conflicting and uncertain threat assessments to make the case for war.

Rockefeller was such an early and spastic booster for war that he has the distinction of being the only senator to actually go beyond the administration's own talking points. While most of his colleagues stuck to well-worn facts about Saddam's old chemical weapons program and vague references to "weapons of mass destruction," Rockefeller repeatedly dropped the "n" word, embracing the most patently absurd of the Iraq threat scenarios.

See more stories tagged with: civil liberties, sen. jay rockefeller, intelligence committee

Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance journalist.

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