Fresno Bee , CA
Oct 27 2007
ANALYSIS: Armenian genocide term a tough political sell
Issue — including the recent resolution — puts lawmakers in a bind.
By Michael Doyle / Bee Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Armenian genocide resolutions such as the one that
collapsed this week confound congressional leaders and presidential
candidates alike.
Promises come easily and are politically alluring. Delivery is
difficult, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now has learned the hard
way.
Failure brings second-guessing and no guarantee of when the
resolution might return.
"We’ll continue to stay focused on this," said Rep. Jim Costa,
D-Fresno, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "We’ll
await our time."
The resolution declares that "the Armenian genocide was conceived and
carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923" and "1,500,000
men, women and children were killed."
Turkish officials say the resolution twists history, and they
reported spending $300,000 a month lobbying against it earlier this
year. Bush administration officials say the resolution undermines
relations with a country that borders Iraq and Iran.
Late Thursday, resolution supporters asked Pelosi to put it off until
a "more favorable" time. Translated: They lack the votes.
Publicly, supporters say they can still win before the 110th Congress
ends next year.
"We’re going to be working this really hard," Rep. Adam Schiff,
D-Pasadena, said Friday. "When we bring it up, we want to be
absolutely confident we have the votes."
Skeptics — some of them resolution co-sponsors — are doubtful. One,
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, said Friday that there was "zero" chance
of reviving the measure next year.
"Democrats aren’t going to bring it up," Nunes said. "They’ve got
shaky feet."
Nunes speculated that the letter sent by Schiff and others to Pelosi
late Thursday afternoon amounted to political cover, a concession of
defeat also designed to shield the Democratic leader from criticism
about letting the bill die.
Undeniably, the genocide resolution puts lawmakers in a bind, and
Pelosi wasn’t the first leader to get entangled in it.
As candidates, George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush,
endorsed the Armenian genocide characterization. They did so in
statements to Armenian-American voters, a political force in certain
regions.
As presidents, both subsequently repudiated the term. Neither used it
in annual commemorations of the 1915-23 Ottoman Empire horrors.
"These are not the Ottomans," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. "What we have
tried to do instead is to get the Turks and the Armenians to work
together to look to their future."
President Clinton likewise avoided the Armenian-genocide phrase.
The rhetorical hesitancy, said Elizabeth Chouldjian of the Armenian
National Committee of America, "is not a Republican or a Democratic"
trend. Instead, it reflects the difference between a candidate
seeking domestic votes and a governmental leader on the world stage.
The same conflict, between politics and governance, can trip up
congressional leaders.
Then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert reportedly pledged in 2000 that
he’d bring a genocide resolution to the floor. He made the promise
while campaigning for Republican incumbent James Rogan, challenged by
Schiff in a district with many Armenian-American voters.
At the last minute in October 2000, Hastert pulled the bill at
Clinton’s behest.
Pelosi’s turn came this month, after the House Foreign Affairs
Committee approved the genocide resolution by 27-21.
"I said if it comes out of committee, it will go to the floor,"
Pelosi said Oct. 11. "Now it has come out of committee, and it will
go to the floor."
She left no wiggle room. But behind the scenes, her lieutenant, Rep.
John Murtha, D-Pa., was advising her that the resolution was a losing
idea. In barely a week, 14 members of the House of Representatives
withdrew their co-sponsorship.