He worries that the situation in Iraq will inflict long-term damage on the professional military he has spent much of his career helping build. He isn't advocating getting out of Iraq. We are stuck there, he says. "Our country can't come out second-best, or we'll be fighting decades of trouble." But he is sharply critical of the Bush administration's approach. "We need more international participation, but it's going the other way. This administration has turned those folks off -- we're going in the other direction."
The U.S. foray into Iraq has made the country less safe, he argues, especially by distracting the military from going after the al Qaeda terrorist network. "No question about it," he says while riding in an aide's 2002 Buick Rendezvous to the Missouri State Fair at Sedalia. "I think we would be in the final phases of cleaning up al Qaeda had we not gone into Iraq."
Walking into the fair, he sees the choir director for his church. "Brenda, how're you doing?" He stops by nearly every one of the dozens of long picnic tables at the Farm Credit Services tent, then poses for photographs with Leah Reid, the newly crowned Queen of the Fair, who is from Sweet Springs. Most of his conversations are small talk about families and friends, with much news of births, deaths and automobile accidents. Half the men -- mostly farmers in this tent -- address him as "Congressman." The other half of the men, and almost all the women, familiarly call him "Ike."
Skelton knows that most of them disagree with his stance on Iraq and are still willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. "I sense people here do support the president," he says, sitting down to lunch.
But he says he is confident that eventually he will be vindicated. "Barbara Tuchman wrote a book, 'The March of Folly,' about how government leaders did things against their own long-term interests," he says over his "porkburger," which is a high-class version of Spam. "It's turning out to be -- with the revelations of no weapons of mass destruction, and the poor aftermath planning -- that this would be another chapter for Barbara Tuchman, if she were alive.
"Let me tell you something," he says. "History will not treat this administration well, 50 or 100 years from now." Right now, he says, he is "deeply concerned about the security of the country -- underline the word 'deeply.' "
As for reconciling his position with that of his constituents: "They know I support the troops."
They do. Skelton was pro-military before it was politically cool, and they remember that. "In this country, prior to 9/11, there wasn't a lot of awareness, in everyone's family, of the military," says Kenneth L. Miller, general manager of the Laclede Electric Cooperative, in Lebanon, Mo., who identifies himself as a solid Republican who votes for Skelton "because he's a great American." Miller says that "this man really carried the flag for the military before it was an issue, before it was popular."
'Ike Tells It Like He Sees It'
Before each meeting, Skelton or an aide tucks his left hand into his pocket so that the lifeless arm doesn't swing loose. Stricken with polio as a teenager, he competed on the school track team by strapping his arms to his side with a belt and throwing his shoulders forward as he ran. Although he had dreamed of attending West Point, he instead went to the University of Missouri and became a lawyer. Today his right forearm works slightly, and only because an operation connected the live muscle in the bicep to his forearm. "I don't talk about it," he says. "You don't want people feeling sorry for you."
At Skelton's next stop, to present a $10,000 Agriculture Department rural development check to the town of Warsaw, Homer May, a retired federal investigator who does a bit of reporting for the weekly Benton County Enterprise, says he and his friends are "divided" on Iraq. "I think our servicemen deserve our respect and support, but I don't think we should ask more of our servicemen than is necessary," he says.
State Sen. Delbert L. Scott, a Republican, adds that Skelton's reputation for honest speaking helps bridge the gap with voters who disagree with him on Iraq. "Ike tells it like he sees it," says Scott, who looks like a slimmer version of the comedian Chevy Chase. "And he has enormous credibility around here."
Back in the SUV, Skelton talks about a book he has just finished on Hitler's aides. As the vehicle rolls past grazing cattle and into the Ozark hills, he recommends a biography of the great Shawnee Indian chief Tecumseh. He is a constant reader, and has plowed through all 50 volumes on his recommended reading list, from a life of Alexander the Great to "Supreme Command," a study of how Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson, the first President Bush and other civilian leaders have handled -- or mishandled -- militaries in wartime.
The instinct of people here is to, as many put it, "support the commander in chief." And there is no question that everyone feels that they back the troops. But there also is worry in surprising places.
Over a breakfast of salt-laden country ham and biscuits in sausage gravy at the Waynesville Technical Academy, Michael Dunbar, a former Army officer who is now a bank lawyer, says that here, near the Army post at Fort Leonard Wood, Iraq isn't political, it's personal. "It's your friends" who are fighting over there, he says.
