<<For the second time in two debates, both Kerry and Gephardt, whose leads in New Hampshire and Iowa respectively have been wiped out by Dean's surge, let Lieberman go after Dean but did not participate in any significant way. Strategists for Kerry have said that as long as someone is attacking Dean, he can concentrate on other things in the debate.>>>
Lieberman, Dean Spar Over Middle East in Debate
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 10, 2003; Page A01
BALTIMORE, Sept. 9 -- Former Vermont governor Howard Dean and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) clashed sharply here tonight over the Middle East in a lively Democratic debate, with Lieberman charging that Dean would recklessly reverse half a century of U.S. policy and Dean accusing his rival of demagoguery.
Dean said last week that the United States should not take sides in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. He denied tonight that he was advocating a significant policy change but said there is no way for the United States to help bring peace to the Middle East without being a "credible negotiator" trusted by both sides. "It doesn't help, Joe, to demagogue this issue," Dean said. "We're all Democrats; we need to beat George Bush so we can have peace in the Middle East."
But Lieberman vigorously disagreed with Dean's assertion that his position was the same as that of former president Bill Clinton and said the governor was abandoning American values and threatening an important alliance. "Howard Dean's statements," he said, "break a 50-year record in which presidents, Republican and Democrat, members of Congress of both parties, have supported our relationship with Israel based on shared values and common strategic interests."
In tonight's debate, the Democrats again vilified President Bush over Iraq and several other issues. Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.) accused the president of deliberately misleading the American people before the war, and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) said there are "serious questions" about how involved Bush was in the policy that led to war. Lieberman said the direction Bush has taken the country "makes me sick," and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) repeated his statement from last week's New Mexico debate that the president's foreign policy has been "a miserable failure."
Unlike last week's debate, however, there was far more pointed discussion among the candidates over whether the four members of Congress on stage who had supported the resolution authorizing Bush to go to war -- Lieberman, Gephardt, Kerry and Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) -- had been wrong in doing so. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) accused Gephardt of undermining Democrats by standing with Bush on the resolution, and Graham said those who supported it had given Bush a blank check and that the president "cannot be trusted" with such authority.
Kerry was asked to explain why he has said recently that he had voted for the threat of force, not the use of force itself. "It was the right vote," he said, saying that without the resolution, there might not have been any chance for the United Nations to send weapons inspectors back to Iraq.
The debate, sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, was the first aimed directly at black voters, a crucial constituency within the Democratic Party.
Dean was asked whether the former governor of an overwhelmingly white New England state could appeal successfully to black voters. He said that if the key to attracting support of black voters is linked to their share of the population in a politician's home state, "Trent Lott would be Martin Luther King." He was referring to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who resigned his post as Senate majority leader under pressure last year for laudatory comments about the segregationist presidential campaign of Strom Thurmond in 1948.
Dean also asserted he is the only white candidate who talks about racial issues in front of white audiences, a comment that some of his rivals took issue with after the debate.
Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist from New York, put the Democratic Party on notice not to take black voters for granted in the coming election. "We help take you to the dance and you leave with right-wingers," he said of the party, adding, "In 2004, if we take you to the party, you go home with us or we don't take you to the party."
The debate was repeatedly interrupted by demonstrators who were followers of perennial candidate Lyndon Larouche, and Sharpton implored and scolded them at every turn, claiming they were deliberately attempting to disrupt the first Democratic debate focused on issues of importance to the black community. "You're going to respect us on this stage because we've got something to say," he said after one interruption.
"Amen," Lieberman said.
"I take that as an endorsement," Sharpton said to laughter.
Dean also was criticized implicitly by former ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, who was asked about statements by Dean suggesting that he supports gun control laws in black, urban areas but not in white, rural states, a characterization with which Dean disagreed. "I support one set of rules," she said.
The candidates who are members of Congress were asked whether they will support Bush's new request for $87 billion to fund military and rebuilding efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next year. Gephardt, Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman and Graham offered qualified yeses, saying they will provide U.S. forces there whatever they need but will question Bush administration officials about the money for reconstruction and insist on help from other countries.
"We need to rebuild Iraq," Gephardt said, "but we need the help of the international coalition to do it."
Kucinich said he will vote against Bush's request, saying it is time to bring the troops home.
In addition to attacking Bush on Iraq and the economy, several Democrats challenged Attorney General John D. Ashcroft for his implementation of the Patriot Act, which they said had become a threat to civil liberties in the United States.
"The last thing we should be doing is turning over our privacy, our liberties, our freedom, our constitutional rights to John Ashcroft," Edwards said.
Tonight's debate was held on the campus of Morgan State University. Brit Hume of Fox News moderated the debate, which was aired nationally on the Fox News Channel. The panelists included Juan Williams of National Public Radio, Ed Gordon of Black Entertainment Television and online journalist Farai Chideya.
Lieberman again played the role of aggressor against Dean and others in the field and was more animated in his attacks on Bush than in some past debates, part of a strategy of trying to show off his centrist credentials while also appealing to the base of the Democratic Party, which is angry at Bush and wants a candidate who will challenge him forcefully.
For the second time in two debates, both Kerry and Gephardt, whose leads in New Hampshire and Iowa respectively have been wiped out by Dean's surge, let Lieberman go after Dean but did not participate in any significant way. Strategists for Kerry have said that as long as someone is attacking Dean, he can concentrate on other things in the debate. |
