Absolute Howard - Dean's national security problem.

MSN ^ | 06/25/03 | William Saletan

[bedolido]

A man who knows his mind, too well

For months, I've been scratching my head over the Howard Dean problem. On domestic issues, Dean beats the rest of the presidential field hands down. He knows the nooks and crannies of all the policy debates. He's been an executive. He's principled where he ought to be principled and pragmatic where he ought to be pragmatic. He hurls fire and brimstone with the best of them. He isn't one of those wishy-washy liberals who inspire contempt on both the left and the right. And he states his views in a way that everyone can understand and most people can support.

The problem is national security. It isn't just Dean's opposition to the war in Iraq, which is eminently defensible. It's subtler and broader. Every time Dean talks about foreign affairs, he gives off a whiff of hostility or indifference to American military power.

Wednesday morning, I went to see him discuss this subject before the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. One advantage of being there was seeing things the cameras don't catch, such as the pair of shorts that Dean's media consultant, Steve McMahon, was wearing below his suit jacket. (McMahon had a knee injury, but the rest of us would gladly have shed our pants in the heat of the room.) The other advantage was clarifying that whiff Dean gives off. I think I now understand his national security problem. It isn't weakness. It's arrogance.

Dean made a few elementary mistakes during the Q and A, such as calling Bush's isolation of North Korea "isolationism." He also espoused several liberal fallacies: that an alliance of democratic ideals "defeated world communism without firing a shot," that President Clinton bequeathed President Bush "momentum" toward Middle East peace, and that al-Qaida "used our loss of focus to rebuild their terrorist networks, as recent deadly attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco demonstrate." But again, what stung most was his tone.

Dean complained, as he has done before, that "instead of the humility we were promised, this administration has acted with unparalleled arrogance and disregard for the concerns of others." It's an odd critique, coming from the most headstrong Democrat in the race. Dean's backbone is his greatest asset. The last question he took Wednesday was from Jim Zogby, the president of the Arab-American Institute, who asked what Dean would do if his supporters demonized Muslims, as some of Bush's conservative Christian supporters have done. Dean said he would repudiate such remarks. But he added: "It should not have to be a white Christian president of the United States whose burden that is. We have got to ensure that moderate Muslims everywhere stand up to the extremists and terrorists in their ranks." That's as close as Dean has come to a Sister Souljah moment.

I used to wonder why Dean's confidence deserted him when it came to defense and foreign policy. Two months ago, at a forum hosted by the Children's Defense Fund, Dean said of Saddam Hussein, "We've gotten rid of him, and I suppose that's a good thing, but there's going to be a long period where the United States is going to need to be maintained in Iraq, and that's going to cost American taxpayers a lot of money that could be spent on schools and kids." I was one of many viewers who choked on the words I suppose. How exactly was getting rid of Saddam not a good thing? Why the need for supposition?

Wednesday, Dean again laced his remarks with caveats. "Increasing numbers of people in Europe, Asia, and in our own hemisphere cite America not as the strongest pillar of freedom and democracy but, somewhat unfairly, as a threat to peace," he said. Of Iraq, he added, "Although we may have won the war, we are failing to win the peace." Somewhat? May have? Why the uncertainty?

What dawned on me as I stood in the room with Dean, watching his stony expression, is that these comments don't reflect uncertainty. They reflect overconfidence. Long before the Iraq war, Dean made up his mind that it would be a failure and would rightly alarm other countries. In fact, the war was a swift success (even if the peace isn't), and foreign depictions of the United States as a bloodthirsty empire are lies. The reason Dean inserts qualifiers such as "somewhat," "may have," and "I suppose" is that he hates to concede anything. That's his story, and he's stickin' to it.

"Some in the Democratic Party claim that a candidate who questioned the war cannot lead the party in the great national debate that lies ahead," Dean noted. Yet "four of the major candidates for the Democratic nomination supported the president's pre-emptive strike resolution five months before we went to war, without, as it turned out, knowing the facts. I stood up against what this administration was doing, even when 70 percent of the American people supported the war, because I believed that the evidence was not there. I refused to change my view, and as it turned out, I was right. … A president must be tough, patient, and willing to take a course of action based on evidence and not based on ideology."

That's Howard Dean. He claims to have questioned the war, when in fact he answered it pre-emptively with a categorical no. He faults his opponents for supporting the war without knowing the whole truth, though he opposed the war in equal ignorance. He says the facts proved him right, though he didn't have them beforehand. He rejects ideology but brags that he never equivocated. He's as certain as any hawk, and just as dangerous

[JohnGalt]

The strange thing is that Dean is strong on the Second Amendment which is the basis of all conservative national defense policy, not the "military."

However, if Dean had any dreams of a beyond left and right alliance, they went South with his speach in front of the foreign policy elite at the Council on Foreign Relations just the other day, where he basically said, 'you can trust me to bomb more countries like Kosovo, and fewer countries in the Middle East.'

That pretty much is Dean's attempt to become acceptible to the Democratic party elite, coupled with reports in the news that he is cutting ties with the wacky homosexual/transgender Marxists.

[AdA$tra]

Let's hope he gets the nomination. Even our dumbed-down culture will not elect somebody that soft on foreign policy in our current situation. Although, every day we get further away from nine-eleven, more people seem indifferent to the war effort.

[steve50]

That pretty much is Dean's attempt to become acceptible to the Democratic party elite, coupled with reports in the news that he is cutting ties with the wacky homosexual/transgender Marxists.

The DLC seems to be scared to death of Dean, that's one thing in his favor.

[JohnGalt]

The past two weeks have shown Dean trying to make himself acceptable to the elite. He could win the South on gun rights alone, but he is so wedded to the party he is a faux candidate. Rather like Alan Keyes, Bill Kristol's roommate at Harvard, running a 'far right' campaign in a rigged primary.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

Wait. Dean gets a pass on because he's been the executive leader of Vermont?
And Bush was raked over the coals because he was only governor of Texas?
What crap.

[Verginius Rufus]

If the election were today and Dean was the Democratic candidate, I don't think he would carry any Southern states. How many voters otherwise disposed to vote for Bush would vote for Dean if they were told he supports gun rights? He can't afford to publicize his stand on this issue very loudly, or he will lose the votes of the fanatical gun-grabbers in his party to a third party candidate.

[JohnGalt]

Democratic Party politics, not national politics.

That is another issue.

[Ann Archy]

You caught my attention about Alan Keyes's candidacy and him being Bill Kristl's roomamte at Harvard. Do you think they made some kind of deal,and if so, what was the deal?? I supported Alan Keyes, but I sure don't anymore....he turned into a sore loser. Please give me your opinions....thanks.

[JohnGalt]

He was on stage next to Bush to make far right libertarian conservatives feel like the GOP still loved us. But Keyes never really had a chance to win, unlike insurgent campaigns by Buchanan in 1992 and 1996 and Steve Forbes in 1996.

Keyes got his first job as a UN Ambassador as part of the neoconservative push for jobs in the Reagan administration--for a full understanding of the paleo-conservative/neo-conservative split, you have to understand that battle. I suspect, like Bauer, he was mostly angling for some think tank job or something innocuous.

Most of his positions were philosophically and historically incoherent. Support for a federal war on drugs, but better "efforts to protect rights", is luke warm at best, and 'compassionate conservative redux' crap in the plain.

He supported some kind of left-libertarian state, where the central authority enforced rights gleamed from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Most conservative libertarians understand the Bill of Rights to be a list of things the government cannot do not a list of abstractions declared by we the people. He endorsed several elements of the welfare state, including SS reform rather than the wholesale dismantling. He supported many elements of the warfare state post 9/11, though while not part of the campaign of course, indicates that he never really bought into the Consitutionalist critique of the ruling elite in DC.

I could keep going, but I think you get the picture of my opinion. He really was not that radical, but an acceptable gadfly to the elite to satisfy us rubes.

[jalisco555]

Let's hope he gets the nomination.

Be careful what you wish for. If he wins the Democratic nomination he could become president. It's happened before. It's dangerous to count on another McGovern blowout.

[Ann Archy]

Thanks for the info.

[JohnGalt]

Couple articles on the subject of Keyes:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo14.html

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27348

Keyes in Defense of Lincoln piece puts him at odds with Walt Williams (fave of the non-beltway right):
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27038

[dirtboy]

The strange thing is that Dean is strong on the Second Amendment

IMO if you read between the lines, he's really not. He says that gun control is a state issue, whereas gun rights are enumerated at the FEDERAL level ans states should be severely restricted in how they can control guns.

[JohnGalt]

If Bush is considered strong on the Second Amendment, than Dean is considered a lot stronger in the current political climate. While your point is valid and I have made the same observation, including Dean's support of the clearly un-Constitutional Assault Weapons Ban, Dean would have the issue all to himself in the Democratic primaries.

[AdA$tra]

Be careful what you wish for.

Reaaly i am not counting any chickens. Bush41 was sitting at least as pretty at this stage of his first term. Nobody even wanted to run against him except a little known Governor of Arkansas. Any dem that gets the nod could get just as lucky.