Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (8611)	1/7/2004 10:31:20 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

The nationally televised debate here on Sunday, sponsored by the Des Moines Register and Iowa Public Television, was essentially a series of attempts to make Dean explain -- or recant -- some of the remarkable things he has said in the past few weeks. In the area of foreign policy, his rivals say Dean has demonstrated his inexperience and naiveté. To argue, as Dean did, on the day after Saddam Hussein's capture by American troops, that jailing the Iraqi dictator left America "no safer" was a classically ill-timed remark. Whatever the ultimate judgment of history, that was a day for celebrating the success of the manhunt for this thoroughly malignant character. His remark to the Concord Monitor that he did not want to prejudge the guilt or innocence of Osama bin Laden left Dean arguing a legalistic point that once again set him apart from public opinion. As he later acknowledged, no real doubt attaches to the al Qaeda leader's role in masterminding the attacks that took nearly 3,000 lives at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Dean himself later said that a death sentence would be just punishment when bin Laden is found. His effort to rationalize his earlier remark on the grounds that he might be president when bin Laden is brought to trial and that a government official "must uphold the rule of law" put a hypothetical barrier in the way of identifying himself with a near-universal sentiment among the American people. When rival candidates criticized Dean's utterances in the debate, he did not erupt nor did he bother to extricate himself. He simply put the same words back on the record in a more benign context -- hoping to damp down the explosive potential. Were these isolated incidents, the damage might be minimal. But Dean has found so many ways in a short time to set people's teeth on edge -- with his comments about the Confederate flag, about his struggle to bring himself to talk religion in the South, about his variant positions on Medicare and trade and other issues -- that this is clearly a pattern. The voting can't come too soon for this accident-prone star. davidbroder@washpost.com