A Choice, Not an Echo
EDITORIAL A Choice, Not an Echo Two big dates are coming up in the presidential campaign: The Iowa caucuses will take place on January 19. The New Hampshire primary follows on January 27. But the...
...He leads in the polls, in money, in organization, and in proven ability to generate enthusiastic and committed supporters...
...Who knows what unforeseeable contingencies, capricious events, unpreventable setbacks, or errors in execution by the Bush administration might combine to give greater credence to critics of the Bush foreign policy...
...Dean could, of course, still lose the nomination...
...But he's in an awfully strong position...
...But the key date in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination may well turn out to have been October 10, 2002...
...In polls, a majority of the Democratic party is anti-Iraq war, anti-Bush Doctrine, and anti-Bush's overall conception of the war on terror...
...Visions of 1972 and 1984 dance enticingly in Republican heads...
...Clark might surge to second (or even first) in New Hampshire, and then could have the resources to compete with Dean in February and March...
...And they may persuade some more people...
...But we'll be engaged in Iraq in 2004, as opposed to having extracted ourselves from Vietnam, supposedly with honor, as in 1972...
...Still, he could falter, and if he did, Wesley Clark would seem to have the best chance to overtake him...
...Winston Churchill's admonition, "Deserve Victory," has always been a good guide to behavior...
...On that day, Senators Joseph Lieberman, John Edwards, and John Kerry joined most of their Democratic colleagues, and a large majority of the Senate, to vote to authorize President Bush to use force against Saddam Hussein...
...But it also means his victory—if he achieves it—will be of greater significance, and more richly deserved...
...it will be war on terror with honor, and something more like high noon in America...
...He is opposed by a fragmented field...
...But even if some in the Bush administration were tempted to fake victory, or to try to pull the wool over the eyes of the people, it wouldn't work...
...Who knows how the world will look 10 months from now...
...Most of the country, on the other hand, basically supports Bush's foreign policy...
...Howard Dean spent the next year attacking his rivals—the "Washington Democrats"—for signing on to Bush's war...
...This puts a far greater burden on Bush to explain and justify his policies...
...In either case, it seems almost certain that the Democratic nominee will be comprehensively anti-Bush: anti-Bush on domestic policy, of course, but also anti-Bush on foreign policy...
...The rest is history...
...So we will have a choice, not an echo...
...The most practical political advice for President Bush in this election year is to do the right thing, and let the electoral chips fall where they may...
...In any event, even if things do go reasonably well, it would be a mistake—perhaps a fatal mistake—for the Bush administration, or its supporters, to assume victory in 2004 will be easy...
...They're going to get it...
...William Kristol...
...It is to Bush's credit that he has committed to staying in Iraq until the job is done, and that he is committed to pursuing the war on terror comprehensively and unsparingly...
...But if the country is split about 60-40 on the most fundamental choice facing it, and if the bulk of one party is strongly opposed to the policy being promulgated by a president of the other party, the opposition presumably deserves a chance in the presidential election to take its argument to the country...
...Churchill's father's slogan, "Trust the People," hasn't been bad advice either...
...In doing so, he has ruled out the easier path to victory taken by his predecessors in 1972 and 1984...
...That same day, Dick Gephardt joined a substantial minority of his caucus, and a substantial majority of the House, in support of the president...
...That's why the president now runs ahead of his Democratic opponents, and why he must be favored in this election...
...And despite all that was admirable about Reagan's foreign policy, one reason it could appear to be "morning in America" in 1984 was that we had (ignominiously and damagingly) pulled out of Lebanon in 1983...
...This is perhaps as it should be...
...Clark, too, is an outsider who vehemently (most of the time) opposes the war...
...It won't be "peace with honor," or morning in America, in 2004...
Vol. 9 • January 2004 • No. 17
