Dean muffles, Kucinich amplifies antiwar voice
Originally published in The Progressive
In Tuesday night's debate, Howard Dean muffled his anti-war voice. The former Vermont governor, who has risen a wave of goodwill for his opposition to the Iraq War, did not distinguish himself as the peace candidate in the debate sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus and Fox News.
While he did say the war "was a mistake," he added, "We cannot lose the peace in Iraq." He said there would be chaos, and Al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalists allied with Iran might take hold.
That's a different answer than he gave in last Thursday's debate, when he said, "We need more troops--more foreign troops. Ours need to come home."
On Tuesday night, only Dennis Kucinich was that outspoken. "Get the U.N. in, and the U.S. out," said Kucinich, also the only candidate to state unequivocally that he would vote against Bush's $87 billion request.
And while everyone else was saying we need to support the troops by approving more money (or by sending in more troops, as Lieberman urged), Kucinich said: "We'll be there forever unless we challenge" the legitimacy of the war and the occupation.
Kucinich properly upbraided John Kerry, who said Bush rushed into the war "against the advice of many." Kucinich pointed out that Kerry wasn't one of those giving that advice, since Kerry actually voted for the war.
Kucinich also needled Dick Gephardt, who, as he did on Thursday, went on at great length about how he told the President this, and he told the President that, and how the President's foreign policy was "a miserable failure," his pet phrase.
"The President misled the nation, and Dick, I just want to say when you were standing there in the Rose Garden with the President and you were giving him advice, I wish you would have told him no," Kucinich said. "Because as our Democratic leader, your position helped to inform mightily the direction of the war."
Al Sharpton also scolded Gephardt on this score, saying that the Democratic politicians were "a miserable failure" for not standing up to Bush and asking what the exit strategy was.
Dean, for his part, did not criticize Democrats for supporting the war. In fact, he barely mentioned the war at all Tuesday night.
Maybe he feels that he needs to move to the right, now that he's doing well in the polls and with people at the grassroots.
But one of the reasons he has been doing well was his courage on the war question. If he continues to lose his voice on this issue, he risks alienating the very people he owes his success to.
-- Matthew Rothschild
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