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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (126)	5/1/2003 11:16:28 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793900

Advice--probably good--from the "Pro." washingtonpost.com Clinton Sits Out Democratic Feud Dean Campaign Sought Ex-President in Dispute With Kerry By Dan Balz Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, May 1, 2003; Page A06 The presidential campaign of former Vermont governor Howard Dean tried to draw former president Bill Clinton into a dispute with the campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), but the former president said he wanted no part of the feud. At the same time, Clinton threw an unexpected challenge to the candidates with strong words of praise for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and he encouraged his fellow Democrats to start a serious debate over reforming the military in the ways Rumsfeld has advocated. Dean and Kerry continued to spar with each other in advance of Saturday's Democratic debate in South Carolina, with Dean's campaign offering Clinton in defense of its candidate on the question of whether the United States will remain the lone military superpower in the world. Kerry's advisers attacked Dean for having told a New Hampshire audience, "We won't always have the strongest military," arguing that the statement called into question Dean's capacity to serve as commander in chief. Dean's campaign accused Kerry's of "crass politics" and said his statement did not imply that, as president, Dean would do anything other than keep the U.S. military well-funded and well-equipped. Yesterday the Dean campaign pointed to a statement Clinton made in February 2002, in which he told an audience in Australia, "This is a unique moment in U.S. history, a brief moment in history, when the U.S. has preeminent military, economic and political power. It won't last forever. This is just a period, a few decades this will last." "I don't want to get in the middle of Dean and Kerry," Clinton said in a telephone call yesterday from Mexico City, where he was making an appearance. But he added that he wanted to clarify what he said then and in later speeches. "In all probability, we won't be the premier political and economic power we are now" in a few decades, he said, pointing to the growth of China's economy and the growing economic strength of the European Union. Whether the United States maintains its military supremacy, he said, depends in part on how much those other entities invest in their militaries, and Clinton said working cooperatively is essential to U.S. interests. But he said he did not want to be misunderstood. "I never advocated that we not have the strongest military in the world. . . . I don't think a single soul has thought I was advocating scaling back our military." During the phone call, the former president praised Rumsfeld for instituting reforms at the Pentagon designed to produce a leaner, more flexible military force. "I hope that when the smoke clears from the Iraq thing, some more attention would be given to Rumsfeld's ideas," he said. Noting that the defense secretary was "encountering some resistance" from the uniformed military before the Iraq war, Clinton said that "Rumsfeld's right" in pushing modernizing and streamlining the military. "I'd like to see our guys debate a lot what the structure of the military ought to be." Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi said the campaign had given Clinton's words prominence to show the Kerry campaign and others that "the president said it would be good if all Americans pondered" a world in which the United States was not the preeminent military, economic and political power, as he said Dean had said in New Hampshire. Clinton wanted no part of it, saying, "I don't know what either one of them has said, and I don't want to know, because it's important for me not to get involved in the primary fight." washingtonpost.com

To: JohnM who wrote (126)	5/1/2003 11:34:43 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793900

Now "Solon" is chiming in that the story has no legs. Santorum's one-week scandal The White House masters the art of saying little, and a would-be scandal about a senator's anti-gay remarks seems to fade away. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Jake Tapper May 1, 2003 \| Tuesday marked a week and a day since the Associated Press published the controversial remarks of Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., in which he seemed to equate gay sex with incest and possibly even bestiality. It was the fourth day since President Bush said, through a spokesman, that Santorum was an "inclusive man" who was "doing a good job as senator -- including in his leadership post." (Santorum is the No. 3 in the Senate GOP.) And it was the day Santorum himself was enthusiastically welcomed at a Senate GOP lunch, after which Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee declared him to have "the full, 100 percent confidence of the Republican leadership in the United States Senate." And with that, the story seems all but over. A story broke in the Wednesday Philadelphia Inquirer that showed Santorum -- shortly after 9/11 -- fundraising for an anti-gay group promising to protect heterosexual marriage from "homosexual activists." The letter, mailed in early 2002, could be "truly the most important letter I ever write you," Santorum said, acknowledging that that "may sound like a huge exaggeration, particularly in light of the attack on America." But it seemed to cause only a ripple of attention; no questions were even asked about it at Wednesday's White House press briefing. salon.com