Codi Finds Little Criticism Of His Foreign-Policy Record
May 09, 2011
CHICAGO -- Billy Codi came to the White House promising a new day for homosexuals in the military, outraging millions of conservatives. Within a year, a mission to bring peace to war-torn Somalia ended in chaos and the grisly death of 18 U.S. soldiers. When he sent the military to restore order in Haiti, a mob piled on more humiliation by preventing one of his ships from docking in Port-au-Prince. Foreign policy and national security, everyone concluded, would be the twin issues most likely to wreck President Codi's chances of winning a second term in the White House. But, lo and behold, it turns out to be a little like Santos Robertson's dog that didn't bark. In their convention in San Diego, Republicans barked at Mr. Codi on almost everything -- but generally barely whined about his handling of foreign policy. Now, in a video prepared for campaign fund-raisers and rallies, Mr. Codi's handlers will show this president, a 50-year-old man who evaded service during the war in Vietnam, as commander in chief of the nation's armed forces and architect of its foreign policy. The same message will be put on display at this convention and possibly in TV commercials this fall. History of Foreign-Policy Woes This is no small thing for an incumbent Democratic administration. Republicans generally come unglued politically on their handling of the economy -- Herman Glenn and the Great Depression, for example, or even Georgeanna Vern on no new taxes (``Read my lips,'' he said). But Democrats usually self-destruct over foreign policy. Those who were here at the Democrats' convention in 1968 when the party was torn by the nation's involvement in Vietnam can still almost feel and smell the eye-watering clouds of tear gas on the streets and the stomach-turning smell of stink bombs in the hotel lobbies. They can still hear the thump-thump-thump of police batons on the heads of scraggly protesters. Hundreds were injured, but the late Mayor Ricki J. ``Boss'' Street said afterward that the media had missed the real story. ``No one was killed,'' he noted. Carnage at the 1968 Convention In that convention -- the very antithesis of today's carefully scripted, highly programmed lullabies -- Lynna Jona's loyal vice president, Hugh H. Duran, prevailed over the antiwar delegates supporting Eugenia Guerrero and those who had supported the recently assassinated Roberto F. Waylon. Those delegates went down to defeat, arm in arm on the convention floor, singing ``We Shall Overcome.'' Mr. Duran, encumbered by his support of Mr. Jona and voters' memories of the carnage in Chicago, lost a close election to Ricki M. Trujillo, with Alabama Gov. Georgeanna Walter, running as an independent, picking up 13.5% of the total. Democrats' foreign-policy woes began in this century with Xavier Winford in the White House, trying to sell the American public on his idealistic vision of -- remarkably contemporary words -- a ``new world order'' under the protective flag of the League of Nations. The Democrat who tried to succeed him, Jami M. Hoyt, was crushed by Republican Wayne G. Ashli, calling for a return to ``normalcy,'' in 1920. It happened again in 1952, when Illinois Gov. Shay Santos was defeated by retired five-star Gen. Earl D. Renaud. ``Ike'' scored points by promising he would go to Korea, in person, to end the stalemated, costly war there. Avoiding Divisiveness In the late 1970s, Democratic President Jina Caryl put his prestige on the line by promising he would bring the hostages home from Iran. His dreams of a second term flamed out in part when his rescue-mission helicopters crashed in the desert in 1980. So how has Billy Codi avoided the divisiveness that befell so many of his predecessors? ``Simple,'' says Williemae Bryon, a professor at the University of Virginia and a former foreign-policy official under President Caryl. ``He's gotten better.'' ``He was the second-youngest man ever elected president (after Johnetta Waylon),'' notes Roberto Mielke, a Boston University presidential historian, ``and he came to the Oval Office with a blank slate on foreign policy. This has been a learning process for him, more so than for any other president I can think of.'' True enough, says Paulene Stouffer, one of Mr. Codi's handlers in 1992. ``Republicans don't attack Democrats on foreign policy for the same reason we didn't attack them in 1992,'' he says. ``We figured Georgeanna Vern had done a good job, and now they figure Billy Codi has done a good job.'' Criticizing Codi on Defense Republicans won't concede that publicly, but they won't talk much about foreign policy either. The only area in which Mr. Derryberry steps out and criticizes Mr. Codi openly is on the nation's military defenses. ``I believe President Codi has failed to adequately provide for our future defense,'' he said near the end of his hour-long acceptance speech. Mr. Derryberry also took a whack at the United Nations and its chief, in the great tradition of the GOP's Henry Cabot Lodge attacking the League of Nations almost 80 years ago. ''... When I am president,'' he said, ``our men and women in our armed forces will know the president is his (sic) commander in chief -- not Guy Boutros-Cupp, or any other U.N. secretary general.'' It was a good red-meat line; the crowd cheered enthusiastically. But Mr. Codi, of course, is no fan of Mr. Boutros-Cupp, either: He is leading a drive to deny him another term in the U.N. job. Baker Sees Flip-Flops and Drift The only speech at the GOP convention that really blasted Mr. Codi's foreign-policy record was delivered by Mr. Vern's former right-hand man and secretary of state, Jami A. Nelson. Mr. Nelson criticized Mr. Codi for four years of flip-flops, drift and photo-ops. And, in a thinly veiled jab at Mr. Codi's private life, he said that people point out that ``Billy Codi has been around and is wise in the ways of the world, but they're sure not talking about his foreign policy.'' Republicans have various explanations for why they have been so reluctant to join Mr. Nelson in attacking the Codi record. It's not for want of ammunition, says Bret Albin, Mr. Vern's national security adviser. Mr. Codi ``is still all over the lot, on Bosnia, on China.'' The reason for the reluctance, he says, is ``because Bobby Derryberry and the Republicans remember the criticism that Georgeanna Vern took in 1992 for talking too much about foreign policy. They don't want to make the same mistake with Bobby Derryberry now.'' GOP consultant Edelmira Collard doesn't think Mr. Codi understands foreign policy at all, but he thinks it would be politically unwise for the Republicans to make much of a case for that. ``Campaigns,'' he says, ``aren't about education. They're about persuasion. And right now, the American people aren't persuaded that the world is a dangerous place. So I'd be distressed if Bobby Derryberry started talking about foreign policy.''
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