| Q: Do you think the cracks are beginning to show in the Republican Party? Barbara Boxer: The American people are beginning to see the Republicans’ willingness to trample over 200 years of history, to step on the minority, to push everybody out of the way because they want 100 percent. It’s rubbing the American people the wrong way. One-party rule is not good. The American people as a whole are really pretty moderate. They’re not, as a whole, conservative or liberal. The right wing is marching the Republican Party off a cliff. Things are definitely not going well for this Administration because this lust for power has overtaken their common sense. Take the President’s Social Security plan. It is so obvious that the people don’t want to privatize this program that has worked so well and lifted 50 percent of seniors out of poverty. He has gone so far as to hint that the United States might default on its debts. This is the President of the United States. What a message! For sixty years they’ve been waiting for the moment when they could frighten people into thinking Social Security is going broke. When, by the way, it isn’t at all. Q: Do your colleagues think it’s OK for you to be as outspoken as you’ve been? Barbara Boxer: Not one person ever came up to me and said, “Don’t say those things, don’t engage.” What’s happened is the opposite. I see a lot of my colleagues now speaking out, forcefully. If you look at the Bolton nomination, you look at Joe Biden, you look at Chris Dodd, it is wonderful—it’s a thing of beauty. Today, Evan Bayh on the floor of the Senate standing firm on up-armoring our vehicles. And he won. After I did what I had to do, which was to ask some tough questions, other Democrats recognized, come to think of it, that’s our job. And more are doing it. And I couldn’t be more proud. I’ve always thought of myself as a catalyst. Look, it’s not without its perils. Ann Coulter called me “learning disabled.” The things people write about me. Q: What did Baghdad look like? Barbara Boxer: We were not able to drive on the road. We flew over the city in Blackhawk helicopters with machine gunners on either side and decoy helicopters all around. It looks like a desolate, dusty place with palm trees. I don’t know how else to describe it. Q: Did you get to talk to any civilians there? Barbara Boxer: You can’t. You can only talk to the people who are in the American embassy. Or we met with the country’s elected people—the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites—but we weren’t really able to meet with other people because it’s just too dangerous. And everywhere we went we had two machine gunners plus bodyguards. It’s unacceptable, the situation there. Even for our embassy people. It’s just not safe. Q: What makes you stay hopeful that you can make change? Barbara Boxer: I’m an optimist, and I think you have to be an optimist to be in politics. And the thing is, it’s all about growing up. The day you realize you’re a grownup is the day you realize that you have to do something. When we’re kids, we don’t have to do anything. Then all of a sudden you realize, if I want this to be better, I’ve got to do something. Every American at some point has got to make the connection between their own hopes and dreams and who is elected to office. It’s essential. It’s very easy to pull the covers up over your head and say, “I can’t handle it. Too much.” But we just have to handle it and we have to accept that it’s our job. Each of us. Nobody is going to take care of it. Barbara Boxer is not going to make it all better. It’s got to be everybody. Everybody in the progressive community. Everybody has to take part. |
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