Replies

Sounded like it was a revenge move on Hillary.

That is how it sounded to me as well. I don't think he could stand her being President and he, The First Husband! His ego would never permit that and can you imagine how tight his chain would be if she were President? Glad I am not the only one that thinks that way!

I did just now, at your suggestion. I really do think it was an attempt to put his party in general more outside this media circus than it is now in the eyes of the public - Bush is holding all the cards and Clinton knows it. It's a matter of "looking Presidential." Standing there with egg on one's face after, say, Saddam's little thugs and maybe Saddam himself, are neutralized, and perhaps even some good news from the new Iraqi government as well comes to pass, and Bush ends up looking like the only one in town who predicted it, simply isn't "Presidential." You will note how quickly Hillary! has pulled her toe back after testing those waters herself.

Pending some really horrible disaster the antiwar surge in the media will fail the Democrats just as it did in 1972, and for the same reason, timing. Had McGovern come along in 1968 or that election happened in 1970 it might have been different. Had Bush intervened in Iraq in April of next year it might have been different. But as it is, it's nothing but the hopeful bleating of a predestined loser.

Dean disagrees. For him the issue is one of creating an image that differentiates him from his rivals. This certainly does that, but at the risk of placing his party in a platform position where a failed Dean candidacy drags them all down with him, as happened in '72. Clinton knows what to do when your opponent is holding a winning hand, as Gingrich and the Republicans did in 1994, and that is to co-opt it for one's own platform, as he did, and rode to subsequent re-election. I suspect that if Hillary! runs at all in 2004 she'll be wearing a hawk's feathers.