Daily Kos reprints a press release from the John Kerry camp attempting to question Howard Dean's (whoops, almost wrote "John Dean's," hahaha) patriotism:

"We've gotten rid of him," Dean said of Saddam Hussein's ouster. "I suppose that's a good thing." Pressed again last week on CNN, Dean refused to concede that Iraq is better off without Saddam. And two weeks ago, while campaigning at a Stonyfield yogurt factory in New Hampshire, the would-be Commander-in-Chief suggested that America should be planning for a time when it is not the world's greatest superpower: "We have to take a different approach [to diplomacy]. We won't always have the strongest military."

Kerry campaign communications Director Chris Lehane reacted to those Dean statements by saying -

"Howard Dean's stated belief that the United States 'won't always have the strongest military,' raises serious questions about his capacity to serve as Commander-in-Chief. No serious candidate for the Presidency has ever before suggested that he would compromise or tolerate an erosion of America's military supremacy."

Well, obviosly the second claim would rest fairly heavily on the CNN transcript, which I don't have handy, and the first claim was probably bad politics, but hardly anti-military.

As for the third claim--honestly, guys, it's OK to say that we might not be all-powerful forever and always. I mean, we won't always have the strongest military. Eventually the roaches will have the strongest military. Simple fact.

Kos is spinning it into a Dems-shouldn't-prey-on-each-other(-yet) thing, which I don't entirely agree with. We do need to keep ourselves honest about the Iraq thing because there are a lot of biiiiig holes we can still step in on the way to 2004, and Dean deserves to be called out on the first statement. (I said much the same thing myself, admittedly, but I am not a Presidential candidate.) It was done in horrendously self-righteous language, though, I'll give 'em that. Leave that kind of talk to Ari et all, and let's try a more, "Howard, maybe you should be more enthusiastic about the ouster of a dictator" kind of thing, OK?

Then again, I guess I'd be very happy to see the Vermont Democrat and the Massachusetts Democrat out of the race, so maybe I'm biased. C'mon, guys, somebody suprise me...
posted by Mike B. at 6:17 PM 0 comments