Why Dean Got Hit on Israel
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 10, 2003; 8:46 AM
The pregame buzz among the reporters gathered to watch last night's Baltimore debate was whether Ron Fournier's story would produce any fireworks.
Fournier, a dogged AP reporter, had slipped into a story last week something that a number of reporters had heard Howard Dean say to supporters in New Mexico but did not report: that the United States should not "take sides" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Since Fournier used the quote in the 28th paragraph, there wasn't much reaction until Sunday, when Joe Lieberman's campaign called the AP to issue a statement slamming the former Vermont governor. John Kerry jumped in on Monday.
So the table was set, so to speak, for the Fox News/Black Caucus debate. Fox's Juan Williams served up the pitch, asking Dean about the comment (he said he'd preserve the "special relationship" with Israel) and inviting the Connecticut senator to respond. Lieberman hit Dean, Dean responded, Lieberman interrupted and Dean accused him of demagoguery -- none of which would have happened if Fournier hadn't picked up on the original remark.
Soon the battle of the copying machines was under way as aides ferried statements to journalists in the cramped pressroom.
8:47, Dean: "The governor recognizes and supports the historic, special relationship that the United States has with Israel."
8:50, Lieberman: "While Dean Claims He's 'Not Taking Sides,' He Specifically Called for Israelis to Leave the West Bank."
8:56, Dean: "Dean Expresses Disappointment in Lieberman Attack; Reaffirms Support for Israel and for Peace."
Lieberman, 9:03: "Clinton Stood Firm with Israel" (this after Dean had likened his own Mideast approach to the former president's).
The post-debate spin room was a loud, disorganized mess, with several candidates emerging simultaneously and all having trouble being heard amid the din. Gephardt was out first, and a reporter demanded to know why he hadn't attacked Dean. Everyone has his own method for getting out his message, Gephardt said.
I wandered over to the Dean spin zone, where the candidate was surrounded by a press pack six deep. "We've got to have a high-profile delegation to go the Middle East," I heard him saying.
I bobbed and weaved, blocked by a camerawoman with a boom mike. Now I could see Dean's mouth. An African-American reporter asked Dean's reaction to the black audience, as if Dean had wandered in from another planet. "I practiced medicine in the South Bronx for three years," Dean said.
A reporter asked why Lieberman had zeroed in on him. "Ask Senator Lieberman," Dean said, nodding to his right. "He's right down there."
I arrived at the next cluster just in time to hear Lieberman complain: "For Howard Dean to say I was demagoguing this issue. . . . "
Quite an evening -- and that's not even counting my chat with George Clooney.
The New York Times chronicles the dustup: "Two of the Democrats, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Dr. Howard Dean, a former governor of Vermont, also clashed heatedly over a statement Dr. Dean made last week that "it's not our place to take sides" in the Middle East.
" 'Howard Dean's statements break a 50-year record in which presidents -- Republicans and Democrats, members of Congress -- have supported our relationship with Israel,' Mr. Lieberman said. He added, 'We do not gain strength as negotiators if we compromise our support of Israel.'
"Dr. Dean responded, 'I'm disappointed in Joe -- my position is exactly the same as President Clinton's.' "
The New York Post's Deborah Orin has Dean backpedaling:
"Under fire from pro-Israel leaders, Democratic 2004 front-runner Howard Dean last night retreated from his statement that America shouldn't 'take sides' in the Mideast, and said he backs a 'special relationship' with Israel.
" 'We've had a special relationship with Israel,' Dean said at a Democratic debate last night, insisting, 'I don't mean any such thing' as changing America's support for Israel or cutting aid.
"Dean's switch came after his demand that Israel withdraw from an 'enormous number' of settlements drew fire from Jewish leaders and praise from an Arab-American leader. Rival Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) charged at the debate that Dean is 'not standing by our values.' . . . It's the first debate where Dean got testy.' "
Dean, who didn't look particularly testy to me, maintains he didn't change his position.
USA Today plays up the Iraq-bashing:
"A Democratic presidential debate meant to focus on issues of concern to black voters turned into a competition yesterday over who could condemn President Bush's foreign and domestic policies in the strongest terms.
"The Democrats' second debate in a week also featured a heated exchange over the Middle East between Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Jewish candidate in the field, and former Vermont governor Howard Dean, the self-styled maverick who has surged ahead of his rivals in fundraising and in polls of key primary states. The Democrats used words like outrageous, abominable and nightmare to describe Bush policies on everything from Iraq to jobs to the environment."
The Chicago Tribune sees a shift in the political landscape:
"Two days before the second anniversary of the brutal attacks that solidified President Bush's credibility and trust as a national leader, the Democrats fighting for his seat in the White House blamed the administration last night for abandoning the war against terrorism and failing to win the peace in Iraq. . . .
"The acrimonious remarks, unthinkable two years ago, underscored the notion that the political stage is again level and a bitterly competitive 2004 presidential primary and general election campaign awaits."
Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory, writing before the debate, has some tough advice for Kerry:
"John, put that hairbrush down and pull yourself away from the mirror for a second. We need to have a little talk. . . .
"You're starting to look like a jackass. In New Hampshire, you're 12 points down in a Globe poll to a guy nobody knew back in May. . . . All that stuff in your speeches about you being a courageous soldier with years and years of experience in international affairs -- can it. Can the impatient air of entitlement. Biography rarely wins an election, especially in modern times. Ask John Glenn. . . .
"All that blather from your staff about Dean being from an insignificant state? You've heard of Bill Clinton, right? Before he was a New Yorker he came from Arkansas. . . .
"First, heat up. Dean looks angry, like someone just wrecked the car. You look confused, like someone just stole yours. Second, lighten up. This should be fun, running for president, one of life's great experiences, and win or lose, you're still going to have houses in Georgetown, Beacon Hill, Idaho, and Nantucket.
"Third, give us clear reason. Nearly every president had a short message.
"Fourth, speak from your heart, not your memory. The public wants conviction, not know-it-all nuance."
Whew! Not exactly hometown boosterism. But Kerry had a mediocre debate.
Salon's Farhad Manjoo questions whether the wired Dean campaign needs to head offline:
"Steve Chaffin, an attorney who is the unofficial coordinator of presidential candidate Howard Dean's campaign in Ohio, has been working in Democratic politics for about 20 years. He doesn't remember ever seeing a candidate attract the kind of people who come to Dean. 'They're all intellectuals,' Chaffin says. 'They're lawyers, doctors, engineers, very creative people.'
"Chaffin considers this a generally positive thing, but he worries that because Dean has relied greatly on the Web as a campaign tool, the candidate's message has not been widely received by 'blue-collar people' and minorities. This concern, which has popped up repeatedly in the media, is shared by many other Dean supporters, including Richard Hoefer, a San Francisco filmmaker who believes that the campaign has been too 'blog-centric.' Asked if he thinks there's a homogeneity to Dean's base, Hoefer responds, 'You mean whitey?'
"In June, when Howard Deam surprised commentators by beating his opponents in the second-quarter fundraising race, it became clear he was using the Internet like no other presidential candidate in history. . . .
"But is Howard Dean's campaign too wired? Is Dean attracting too many people who hang out on the Web all day -- wealthy, Internet-savvy, mostly white people, including a healthy dose of what the New York Times recently called 'the tongue-studded next generation' -- while failing to win over more traditional Democratic constituencies?"
The NYT's newest op-ed columnist, David Brooks, pans one aspect of the president's Iraq speech:
"The Bush administration has the most infuriating way of changing its mind. The leading Bushies almost never admit serious mistakes. They never acknowledge that they are listening to their critics. They never even admit they are shifting course. They don these facial expressions suggesting calm omniscience while down below their legs are doing the fox trot in six different directions."
Paul Krugman, meanwhile, saw this coming:
"It's now clear that the Iraq war was the mother of all bait-and-switch operations. Mr. Bush and his officials portrayed the invasion of Iraq as an urgent response to an imminent threat, and used war fever to win the midterm election. Then they insisted that the costs of occupation and reconstruction would be minimal, and used the initial glow of battlefield victory to push through yet another round of irresponsible tax cuts.
"Now almost half the Army's combat strength is bogged down in a country that wasn't linked to Al Qaeda and apparently didn't have weapons of mass destruction, and Mr. Bush tells us that he needs another $87 billion, right away. It gives me no pleasure to say this, but I (like many others) told you so."
Out in Cal-y-fornya, a swing and whiff for Peter Ueberroth, whose brief candidacy never made any sense:
"Former sports czar Peter V. Ueberroth, who built a career out of making the seemingly impossible happen, yesterday ended his longshot bid to become California's next governor," the Los Angeles Times reports, "saying there wasn't enough time left 'for this candidacy to get across the goal line.' "
Goal line? Wasn't he baseball commissioner?
"It was not immediately clear how his departure would affect the balance of the race beyond winnowing the list of top contenders and better defining the battle. . . .
"Three hours after Ueberroth's announcement, state Sen. Tom McClintock asserted that he was gaining momentum and challenged fellow Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger to a 'real Lincoln-Douglas debate.' "
Who gets to play Lincoln?
In the Weekly Standard, Bill Whalen opines on the latest Field Poll (Cruz 30, Arnold 25, McClintock 13):
"Davis isn't finished, but with only four weeks left until the vote, the death watch soon begins. The governor trimmed only 6 points off last months' 21-point deficit despite some favorable conditions the past couple of weeks: a televised statewide address; 30 minutes alone in the debate spotlight last week; saturating the airwaves with anti-recall ads featuring Senator Dianne Feinstein (while the Field Poll was contacting likely voters), plus the occasional gaffes by Arnold and Cruz. If Davis can't flourish as the safe alternative in that environment, it's hard to see how he rallies the faithful over the next 30 days.
"As for the second half of the ballot, the Field Poll once again is a field day for Republican angst. In the August survey, conservative Bill Simon garnered 8 percent support. That was before he dropped out of the race. In a field absent Simon, McClintock received only a 4 percent 'surge', compared to 3 percent bump for Arnold. . . . That doesn't bode well for McClintock, as it suggests conservative Republicans, rather than leaving Simon en masse for the conservative senator, are split between principled and pragmatic courses. In their hearts, they want Tom. In their minds, they want to win--and that road leads to Arnold."
Not everyone cringes over tales of long-ago drug use. Take, for example, National Review Editor Rich Lowry:
"Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1977 interview with the now-defunct pornographic magazine Oui is not recommended reading for anyone without a strong stomach for vulgarity. But the interview helps explain the soundness of one of the actor's public-policy positions.
"Schwarzenegger smoked marijuana, enjoyed it and still managed to become an ambitious, intelligent actor and businessman who built a sterling career for himself. This must give him a healthy skepticism for the unthinking hostility toward marijuana that infects our political culture and drives the federal government's lunatic campaign against the drug, as if anyone who ever tries it is doomed to become a stoner."
Josh Marshall is steamed at Rummy calling for critics to exercise restraint on Iraq: Quoting the secretary:
"'To the extent that terrorists are given reason to believe he might, or, if he is not going to, that the opponents might prevail in some way, and they take heart in that, and that leads to more money going into these activities, or that leads to more recruits, or that leads to more encouragement, or that leads to more staying power, obviously that does make our task more difficult.'
"In other words, the problem is not any shortcoming in the president's policies, but the president's domestic critics who are emboldening 'the terrorists' by pointing out the shortcomings of the president's policies. . . .
"It's everyone's fault but theirs. 'The terrorists', domestic enemies, cultural declension, the French, perhaps tomorrow the decline of reading, the end of corporal punishment in the schools, permissive parenting, bad posture, rock 'n roll, space aliens. The administration is choking on its own lies and evasions. And we have to bail them out because the ship of state is our ship."
Peter Jennings has some thoughts for USA Today, though they were delivered before a study found his newscast the most antiwar in its coverage of the Iraq conflict:
"'I don't think anybody who looks carefully at us thinks that we are a left-wing or a right-wing organization,' says the Canadian-born Jennings, who became a U.S. citizen this summer. . . .
"Says Jennings, speaking before the release of the study: 'We have been criticized, a little bit to my surprise, by people who think I was not enough pro-war. That is simply not the way I think of this role. This role is designed to question the behavior of government officials on behalf of the public. I think people who have done this and all jobs in journalism have believed that. Are we out of step with the administration because we do not comport completely to their political point of view?' he asks. 'So they criticize us for it. It goes with the territory, and if we get a groundswell we begin to look at ourselves. "Are we? Are we not?" I don't think the public realizes how much soul-searching goes on in news organizations about what is the right thing to do.'"
It helps, I think, if we keep talking about it rather than posing as omniscient.
© 2003 washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com |
