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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (13400)	2/24/2003 12:40:17 PM
From: Softechie	Respond to of 89467

VIX Count #5 is coming up...http://www.ttrader.com/mycharts/display.php?p=9883&u=softechie&a=Softechie's%20Charts&id=373

To: American Spirit who wrote (13400)	2/25/2003 6:25:20 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Theme for a Party: No More Mr. Nice Guy By E. J. Dionne Jr. Columnist The Washington Post Tuesday, February 25, 2003 Democrats lost the 2002 elections because they didn't know how to confront President Bush, because they didn't have a coherent approach to national security and because they lacked a domestic program with the power to inspire voters. Over the past few days, the party got an interim report on how post-election repairs are going. The report was in the form of speeches before a meeting of the Democratic National Committee by most of the party's presidential candidates -- Sen. John Kerry, recovering from prostate surgery, did not attend. On one matter, there was absolute clarity: President Bush's post-9/11 free pass expired on the night of last year's midterm elections. Democrats have relearned a basic lesson of politics: If the opposition party is reluctant to oppose -- and criticize and even excoriate -- a large portion of the electorate will decide that the incumbent must not be so bad. True, voters say they don't like partisanship. But partisan voters account for a large share of the electorate, as Bush understood in 2002 when he did so much to get Republicans to the polls. And if swing voters don't like political attacks, they are influenced by the overall political climate. In 2002 Democrats conditioned them in Bush's favor by failing to take him on. No More Mr. Nice Guy was the theme of this week's DNC meeting. This very partisan crowd was hungry for assaults on Bush, and every Democrat complied. Even Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is always in danger of nice-guying himself out of contention and who pointedly supported Bush on Iraq, attacked Bush for breaking promises and criticized the "administration's one-sided, go-it-alone foreign policy." Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, anticipating that Republicans will attack him as a "millionaire trial lawyer," contrasted his willingness to stand up for kids and other poor clients against Bush's standing up for big companies. "If you want to talk about the insiders you fought for, versus the kids and families I fought for," Edward shouted, "here's my message to you, Mr. President: Bring it on!" Memo to Edwards: It's a good line, but shouting looks lousy on television. You can tell how angry Democrats are at Bush by how often they were willing to bring up the name Bill Clinton, as in the Clinton economy and Clinton surpluses, contrasted with the Bush economy and Bush deficits. Another measure of Democratic anger: the applause the Rev. Al Sharpton won for his nice set of one-liners. "I hate to say it, but he gave a good speech," said one Democrat who absolutely can't stand Sharpton. But what about a domestic policy? Here, the award for specificity goes to Rep. Dick Gephardt, who has had some success in recent weeks in transforming the words "worn and tired" into "seasoned and experienced." Gephardt's ideas included universal health care through business tax credits, portable pensions, a new Teacher Corps -- the government would pay off the student loans of graduates who agree to teach for five years -- and flexible but clear global wage standards. Even non-Democrats can look forward to the debates between Gephardt and Howard Dean, Vermont's former governor and surprisingly strong dark horse, on how to get health coverage to everyone. As for national security, Democrats are making the White House nervous with their pointed criticisms of the administration's failure to spend enough on homeland defense measures. Bush's proposal to eliminate taxes on dividends -- his great political gift to the Democratic Party -- looks especially irresponsible in light of the costs of war and safety at home. But you don't have to agree with Lieberman, Edwards or Gephardt in supporting Bush on the war to see that Democrats who want to win will need more coherence on foreign policy than they have now. Through his forceful opposition to Bush's policy, Dean has established himself as someone far more important than a second-tier candidate -- as long as currently second-tier candidates Dennis Kucinich, Carol Moseley-Braun and Sharpton don't nibble away at the edges of his antiwar constituency. Yet for the moment, it's Kerry -- with his standing as a Vietnam veteran and by combining support and criticism of Bush on Iraq -- who comes closest to the foreign policy balance a Democrat needs to strike to satisfy both his party and those outside it. Democrats aren't so dumb that they can't learn from defeat. They're better off now than they were three months ago. They've got the anti-Bush part down. The inspiration isn't there yet. © 2003 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (13400)	2/28/2003 5:25:42 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

Winning a war and losing the world By William Pfaff IHT Thursday, February 27, 2003 Washington's folly PARIS - The Bush government's Phony War against Iraq now has lasted longer than the Phony War of 1939-1940. With each month of delay, opposition to the American plan to invade Iraq has intensified. The administration's manners in campaigning for war have provoked a real anti-Americanism in West European opinion, going much beyond mere dissent on this one issue. . During the 11 months since the administration made public its intention to cause "regime change" in Iraq, international markets and the international economy have foundered in uncertainty about the war. . This uncertainty, which businessmen and investors hate, has smothered the international recovery previously expected to follow the bust of the high-tech bubble. The Bush people seem not to have noticed. . The American Phony War is damaging the international economy, the principal international security and political institutions, and what is left of the American reputation for seriousness. Yet until the U.S. military buildup started this winter, Washington's policy toward Iraq was little more than bullying bluster, which Saddam Hussein was able to turn to his own advantage. . Despite having declared a policy of preemptive war, and saying that he was free to strike Iraq as he wished, ignoring international legality, President George W. Bush seems to have been convinced by Secretary of State Colin Powell that he would do better to have allies and a veneer of international approval. The administration seems not to have understood, however, that there was no point in going to the UN Security Council if the United States intended to ignore other opinions and only wanted endorsement for what it had already said it intended to do. . The trip to the United Nations thus simply provided time for mobilization of diplomatic and popular opposition to U.S. plans. The result has weakened the administration's domestic as well as international positions. . Washington lost the first round in the Security Council, where it thought it could easily prevail. The new U.S. (or Anglo-American-Spanish) resolution, circulated on Monday, also seems unlikely to pass, even without a veto. . Washington also unwisely tried to "bounce" NATO into deploying a defense of Turkey against Iraq, a threat Turkey would only face if the United States invaded Iraq. This backfired, blocked by Belgium, France and Germany, eventually finding an obscure compromise at the military level. . Washington's one success has been to split the European Union. . The incompetence of all this is what surprises. Never before has the Iraqi despot had so many governments trying to prevent an attack on him. Never before has opinion in the liberal democracies been so alienated from the United States. . The president and his men have put their own team in a hole so deep that when Washington does go to war against Iraq, as it soon will, it is unlikely to have any major allies left other than the governments of Britain, Spain and Poland. . Washington says that what thus far has happened in the Security Council threatens to demonstrate the UN's "irrelevance," since the UN is relevant only when it endorses U.S. decisions. NATO found a compromise on Turkey, but after the Belgian-Franco-German revolt, Washington will never again go to NATO on any serious matter. . Washington is delighted to have split "new Europe" from "old Europe," but may actually have done old Europe a favor. Old Europe is very close to a European Union membership expansion motivated not by interest but by a sense of obligation toward the former Warsaw Pact states. This expansion would end any possibility for a federal Europe, or even for a "Europe of nations" capable of an independent global role. . The old Europeans now are inclined to question, rethink or postpone expansion, or even to reformulate it so that the EU has first- and second-class members. Thus Washington has quite possibly made an activist, rival Europe more, rather than less, likely. . Tribune Media Services International iht.com