Continental Divide
by Peter Beinart
Post date 10.22.03 | Issue date 10.27.03
I used to hope the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination would come down to a clash over national security. But you don't get everything you hope for. In fact, as the campaign has progressed, the foreign policy distinctions between the leading candidates have actually diminished. John Kerry, Richard Gephardt, and John Edwards--who supported the Iraq war--now denounce it nearly as vehemently as Howard Dean, who did not. Dean, acting like the front-runner he is, spends less time attacking his rivals for trying to have it both ways. Wesley Clark, who was supposed to sharpen the campaign's national security debate, has instead embraced its mushy middle--first saying, à la Kerry, that he would have voted for the Iraq war resolution while opposing the war itself, now saying he opposed the resolution, too....
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