Dean won't let Kerry off the hook

[Freddie Stubbs]

IT'S TIME to focus on how best to build a democracy in Iraq, Bill Clinton said on CNN this week. And as he runs for president, John Kerry would clearly love to do just that.

In a conference call with reporters on Monday, the Massachusetts senator tried. Citing his Vietnam War experience, he called upon the Bush administration to put aside ''false pride'' and seek help from both NATO and the UN in Iraq.

But in attempting to shift campaign attention from the decision to wage the war to his ideas for winning the peace, Kerry faces one formidable obstacle: former Vermont governor Howard Dean.

Dean insists that his campaign isn't based on contrasting his antiwar stance with the prowar positions of his leading Democratic rivals but rather on balancing the budget and jump-starting the economy. Still, Tuesday found him holding a New Hampshire event to criticize the Democratic candidates who voted for the October congressional resolution authorizing force in Iraq.

more: http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/206/oped/Dean_won_t_let_Kerry_off_the_hook+.shtml

[blm]

1. Lehigh doing what he always does...

slanting every article against Kerry and FOR Rove.

[Freddie Stubbs]

4. You are also describing

Howard Dean's spin. Interesting.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. Dean knows it is the major issue energizing his supporters

Dean knows it is the major issue energizing his supporters so of course he is going to keep beating that drum. As long as no one in either camp gets too shrill or negative I think it is a healthy debate.

[DrFunkenstein]

3. Misleading

''A bunch of the people who voted for this war are now saying, `Well, we were misled,''' said Dean. ''The fact is you can't afford to be misled if you are running for president of the United States.'' The crucial time for questioning intelligence, Dean added, was back before the war began.

But Kerry's aides insist he didn't passively accept the administration's claims. They say Kerry arranged a private breakfast with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and a private briefing with Department of Defense experts, that he grilled Secretary of State Colin Powell at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, and that he consulted with, among others, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and a trio of Clinton administration foreign policy officials: former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and former national security adviser Sandy Berger.

For their part, Kerry aides point to a number of Dean's prewar statements that sound like the senator's own, comments in which Dean said he thought Saddam might well have biochemical weapons and that he needed to be disarmed. (It's important to note, however, that Dean also said that absent clear evidence of a threat to the United States, he did not see the case for ''unilateral'' action in Iraq).

---

A few things: First, Kerry also did not see the case for unilateral action, and has said so several times. The conditions for invasion between Dean and Kerry are identical. The real difference between the two is that while both Dean and Kerry supported a resolution that never happened, only Kerry had to vote on one that existed.

Although it was not resolution he would have drafted, Kerry went on record voting to effectively disarm Saddam Hussein - an action he had been calling for since the late 90's.

Secondly, Kerry claimed the American people MAY HAVE been "misled" on specific intelligence, particularly nuclear claims, but was convinced - like Dean - that Saddam did possess WMDs. All intelligence pointed to that, and I think even Dean was shocked that NOTHING showed up.

Dean didn't question the intelligence back then, he argued that Saddam was containable and not an imminent threat - exactly as Kerry claimed. It would be nice for Dean to flush his old arguments down the memory hole, and say that he was furiously questioning the existence of WMDs, but it still wouldn't be true.

Finally, I'm not sure what resolution Dean is reading, but Section 3 clearly states that the President must determine that "reliance...on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone" will not 1) adequately protect national security, or 2) be "likely" to lead to the enforcement of relevant Security Council resolutions.

If Bush determined such, he failed to respect the language of the resolution, because clearly diplomacy had not been exhausted.

[Larkspur]

5. Then explain why two thirds of the Dems in the House, including

then Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi opposed the Iraq War Resolution? Nancy was on the House Intelligence committee at the time and she said publicly that the Bush Admin had not presented evidence to support that Saddam was an imminent threat to the United States.

Kerry based his vote on trying to counter his "dovish" liberal image. He ignored what the Democrats did in the House and why.

[blm]

6. Dean will be examined more probatively on his Iraq assertions...

one day will find him reconciling all his statements. From his support of Biden-Lugar to his launch attack in 60 days, to his declaration of being the only antiwar candidate.