Rivals jump on Clark as Democrats debate
Katharine Q. Seelye and Jodi Wilgoren NYT
Friday, October 10, 2003
Reverend Al Sharpton to refer to the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger. "The whole notion of our showing our differences is good," he said. "But let us not forget that our differences should be toward the aim of winning against Bush. We are 48 hours away from watching an actor who couldn't win an Oscar win to be the governor of California. We need to deal with how we beat George Bush in 2004."
PHOENIX, Arizona General Wesley Clark, the newest entrant into the Democratic presidential contest, was repeatedly upbraided by his rivals at a debate here for what they said was a muddled position on whether he would have supported the congressional resolution granting President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq.
Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who until now had been the primary target of attacks from the other candidates, noted during the debate Thursday night that Clark had advised a candidate for Congress last year to support the resolution and had then appeared to change his view.
Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut said he had been "disappointed" in Clark and recited a litany of apparently alternating views.
"The American people have lost confidence in George Bush because he hasn't leveled with them," Lieberman said. "We need a candidate who will meet the test of reaching a conclusion and have the courage to stick with it."
Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts joined in, criticizing Clark for his views on the war and for appearing at a Republican fund-raiser in May 2001.
Clark, who has soared to the top of some polls in his first three weeks as a candidate, responded by saying, "I'm not going to attack a fellow Democrat," then derided everyone on the stage.
"I think it's really embarrassing that a group of candidates up here are working on changing the leadership of this country," he said, "and can't get their own stories straight."
Clarifying his position, Clark said: "I would have voted for a resolution that took the problem to the United Nations. I would not have voted for a resolution that would have taken us to war."
He added that he had praised Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain "for sticking with the offensive in Iraq once it had begun." But, he said, they did not send in enough forces, "there was not a plan to deal with it afterwards" and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq was not an imminent threat.
Under fire at another point in the 90-minute debate, Clark, who is retired from the army, said, "People want straight talk and they want leadership." He called on the candidates who are in Congress to work to stop Bush's doctrine of pre-emption, warning that it could lead to even more explosive situations around the world.
This debate, the second to include Clark, had several heated exchanges, and Dean did not escape unscathed. At one point, Judy Woodruff, the moderator, noted that Kerry's operatives were distributing material suggesting that Dean had tried to end prescription-drug coverage for the elderly.
Dean said that was "silly," explaining that he had only threatened the Republican-controlled Vermont Legislature that the elderly would lose their prescription coverage if they did not pass a cigarette tax, which they eventually did. Kerry said, "It's not silly, it's what he said."
Dean repeated his contention that the Democratic Party had lost power because its leaders failed to stand up for the party's values. Both he and Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who voted against the Iraq war resolution, blamed the others on the stage for giving Bush unchecked power. "The problem is that we empowered the president to run roughshod over us," Dean said, "because nobody stood up to him."
The sniping prompted the Reverend Al Sharpton to refer to the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger. "The whole notion of our showing our differences is good," he said. "But let us not forget that our differences should be toward the aim of winning against Bush. We are 48 hours away from watching an actor who couldn't win an Oscar win to be the governor of California. We need to deal with how we beat George Bush in 2004."
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