Ford at the Point
U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. , who was a member of the congressional delegation that toured “Ground Zero,” the area of the devastated World Trade Center, on Tuesday , has been named to a couple of House of Representatives ad hoc groups charged with considering responses to the crisis.
Both groups Ð the Task Force on the Economy and the Homeland Security Task Force Ð were created by the Democratic caucus, and , in each area, Ford has emerged as something of a spokesperson for centrist Democratic positions.
Typical was his appearance Sunday on CNN’s “Saturday Edition,” in the course of which he made the following suggestions: that much of the blame for security lapses leading to the September 11th disaster lay with flaws in congressional oversight; that now was not the time to consider reversing the tax cuts approved by Congress earlier this year at the behest of President Bush; that something between $150 billion and $200 billion should be spent in the short run as a stimulus for the economy, and that Congress should avoid second-guessing either President Bush or his two predecessors, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, on their foreign policy and anti-terrorist actions.
