Blijkbaar heeft Daschle ook zijn ballen teruggevonden nu Dole kritisch is voor Bush:

[…] increasingly over the course of the last several weeks, reports have surfaced which have increasingly led me to believe that, indeed, there are those who would politicize this war.

I was given a report about a recommendation made by Matthew Dowd, the pollster for the White House and the Republican National Committee. He told a victory dinner not long ago, I quote, “The No. 1 driver for our base motivationally is this war.”

Dowd said war could be beneficial to the G.O.P. in the 2002 elections. […]

I thought, well, perhaps that’s a pollster. Perhaps pollsters are paid to say what’s best, regardless of what other considerations ought to be made. Pollsters are paid to tell you about the politics of issues. And were it left with pollsters, perhaps I wouldn’t be as concerned. But then I read that Andy Card was asked, well, why did this issue come before Washington and the country now? Why are we debating it in September? Where were we last year? Where were we last spring? And Mr. Card’s answer was, “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”

New products? War?

And then I listened to reports of the vice president. The vice president comes to fund-raisers, as he did just recently in Kansas. The headline written in the paper the next day about the speech he gave to that fund-raiser was, “Cheney Talks About War; Electing Taft Would Aid War Effort.”

And then we find a diskette discovered in Lafayette Park, a computer diskette that was lost somewhere between a Republican strategy meeting in the White House and the White House. Advice was given by Karl Rove, and the quote in the disc was, “Focus on war.”

I guess right from the beginning, I thought, well, first it was pollsters. And then it was White House staff. And then it was the vice president. And all along, I was asked, “Are you concerned about whether or not this war is politicized?”

And my answer on every occasion was, yes. And then the follow-up question is, “Is the White House politicizing the war?” And I have said, without question: “I can’t bring myself to believe that it is. I can’t believe any president or any administration would politicize the war.”

But then I read in the paper this morning, now, even the president, the president is quoted in The Washington Post this morning as saying that “the Democratic-controlled Senate is not interested in the security of the American people.”

Not interested in the security of the American people? You tell Senator Inouye he’s not interested in the security of the American people! You tell those who fought in Vietnam and in World War II they’re not interested in the security of the American people! That is outrageous! Outrageous!

The president ought to apologize to Senator Inouye and every veteran who has fought in every war who is a Democrat in the United States Senate. He ought to apologize to the American people. That is wrong. We ought not politicize this war. We ought not politicize the rhetoric about war and life and death.

I was in Normandy just last year. I’ve been in national cemeteries all over this country. And I have never seen anything but stars, the Star of David and crosses on those markers. I’ve never seen “Republican” and “Democrat.”

This has got to end. We’ve got to get on with the business of our country. We’ve got to rise to a higher level. Our Founding Fathers would be embarrassed by what they’re seeing going on right now. We’ve got to do better than this. Our standard of deportment ought to be better. Those who died gave their lives for better than what we’re giving now. [New York Times]