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February
14, 2003, 9:20 a.m.
¿Cómo
Se Dice “Liar”?
Landrieu on
Estrada.
By Robert Alt
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 ith
the December runoff quickly approaching, Mary Landrieu's hopes of maintaining
her seat in the Senate were waning. Political analysts asserted that her
most significant problem was lack of significant backing by civil-rights
groups and minority voters, which were touted as the key to potential
Democratic victory. In an effort to reach out to these groups, Landrieu
ran ads on Spanish radio. The following is a translated excerpt of one
such advertisement that ran in Spanish prior to the election:
We need a senator
that understands the needs of our community, economy, culture and society.
Mary Landrieu has worked close to the Hispanic Community. . . . Mary
Landrieu, ALSO SUPPORTED THE CANDIDACY OF THE HONDUREAN MIGUEL ESTRADA
FOR THE FEDERAL COURT OF APPEALS.
The advertisement
was paid for by "Friends of Mary Landrieu," which Federal Election
Committee reports reveal to be the Principal Campaign Committee of the
Candidate.
Of course, Landrieu
won the election, and she did so on in no small part due to high minority
turnout. Given the current shameful treatment of Miguel Estrada and her
unambiguous support for him during, voters in her state might well expect
to see Landrieu standing side-by-side with Senator Breaux in support of
the highly qualified D.C. Circuit nominee. But then the voters would be
wrong: Landrieu is supporting the filibuster. Thus Landrieu does again what
she has done far too often before: talked like a moderate, and voted like
a liberal.
When Landrieu was
confronted with this "apparent contradiction," her staff, no
doubt using President Clinton's deposition as a "how to" guide
for politicos caught in "apparent contradictions" issued the
following statement:
Unfortunately,
some of my supporters in the Hispanic community who helped us produce
this commercial misinterpreted my neutrality as a statement of support.
I take personal responsibility for the error and I apologize to anyone
who was mislead by these ads, which ran for less than two weeks on one
radio station in New Orleans. [Emphasis added.]
Now, clearly we should
take Senator Landrieu at her word: Her supporters just happened to misunderstand
her — I'm sure that she never said anything supporting Estrada —
and then of course her Principal Campaign Committee just happened to run
an ad written by them based on this misunderstanding. But then, what could
have caused this misunderstanding? Perhaps this statement by Landrieu
in the Baton Rouge Advocate might have confused them:
Landrieu said she
has done her best in the U.S. Senate to encourage the appointment of
more black judges. "Not that Sen. Breaux hasn't been supportive,
because he most certainly has. But I have been more vocal on that issue,
and proudly so," Landrieu said. I believe we need a diversity of
qualified judges on our bench, both African-American and Hispanic. And
I've been very proud of that, and I think it's the right thing to do."
You see, it's just
an honest misunderstanding. Landrieu just meant that she doesn't oppose
Estrada, and that she supports confirming Hispanics to the bench. Why
even a child of two should have been able to understand that from these
statements what she really meant is that she was open to filibustering
a circuit-court nominee — something which has never been done in
the history of the Senate — because her liberal buddies are afraid
that President Bush might make him the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.
But don't get her wrong: She said that she's more supportive of minority
nominees than her colleague Senator Breaux, which is of course why he
is supporting Estrada and why she is supporting the filibuster. It's all
perfectly simple.
Over the years, American
politics has added words to the English lexicon — one thinks of "gerrymander"
and "Borked." But now an American election has added a new word
to the Spanish lexicon. ¿Cómo se dice "a flagrantly
broken campaign promise, especially one which capitalizes on ethnicity"
en Español? Landrieu?
— Robert Alt is an adjunct fellow at the
John M. Ashbrook Center
for Public Affairs.
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