Candidate Differances
 

Apparently, Howard has come out with the shocking idea that America needs to be an honest broker in the mid-east. "Israel has always been a longtime ally with a special relationship with the United States, but if we are going to bargain by being in the middle of the negotiations then we are going to have to take an evenhanded role,"

Joe-responding to earlier Dean comments, "If this is a well-thought-out position, it's a mistake, and a major break from a half a century of American foreign policy," Lieberman said in a statement. "If it's not, it's very important for Howard Dean, as a candidate for president, to think before he talks."

John- responding to same, "It is either because he lacks the foreign policy experience or simply because he is wrong that governor Dean has proposed a radical shift in United States policy towards the Middle East. If the president were to make a remark such as this it would throw an already volatile region into even more turmoil."

We know Lieberman is an Israel Firster crap I said it out loud, now I'm in trouble. Its clear that Kerry will say anything, so distilling a deep seated belief from his pronouncements will be difficult. I'm not sure if this is a change for Dean, we'll have to see what else is out there.

I'm assuming these are the three candidates that matter, if someone has a favorite with a position on anything that matters to you feel free to lay it out.

I'm backing Kerry. In all the hoopla about the primary, the DNC seems to have forgotten the little fact that whoever they nominate has to beat Bush. Kerry's the best one suited to it. The Republicans can't campaign on domestic issues, which leaves them with foreign policy and a whole lot of shirt-wavin' (already a tricky spot to be in - No matter how well you could do abroad, people will go to the booths asking why you couldn't do the same for your own people).

Now, you have Dean and Kerry. Dean just comes off as one of the blandest men to wear the title of "Democrat" ever. I know he's conservative enough to pull some votes away from Bush, even with more liberal and moderate Republicans leaving the Bush camp over Iraq, but you succeed in whipping the public into enough of a fervor, that edge will dull and quickly.

Kerry now, has the background to beat Bush. Kerry is a Vietnam vet, - enlisted, not drafted - Silver Star, Bronze Star, three Purple Hearts, whereas Bush spent his time in the Texas Air National Guard. Come on, the Air National Guard? In TEXAS? Can you think of a group that could POSSIBLY see less action? I mean, at least the regular National Guard in other states occasionally skirmished against protestors and rioters.

As for his "saying anything" - well, duh. Kerry's in a good position right now in the #2 slot. The primary isn't for several months, and for that time - as long as Dean stays in front - he's pretty safe from scrutiny. Kerry doesn't have to turn up the juice until later on, and in the meantime, just let Dean take all the media pressure and any hits that might entail. Case in point - Dean publicly came out and backed Davis in the recall. If Davis doesn't come through in this, Dean is going to get one hell of a backlash come the CA primary.

Lieberman: voted to authorize use of force in Iraq; subsequently backed the war.

Dean: did not have the opportunity to vote on use of force in Iraq; criticized the war.

Kerry: voted to authorize use of force in Iraq; now criticizes the war and says he didn't really mean "authorize" or "force", and that his vote was really to give the ability to negotiate to the President

I think he's bullet proof on all the military questions. Rush ran out the evil war protester bull on his show recently. His rant sounded pretty empty to me. Kerry volunteered, he served, he realized it wasn't working and he protested, that sounds pretty solid to me. Somehow Bush's lack of service never gets traction but put him against an active duty guy and he loses his advantage.

You really think so? I think Dean has mad charisma. And I think a stance against the war might come out ahead in the end.

Of course, I'm far from decided on who I will actually vote for.

Dean on CNN just now (summarized):

"Even-handed" is a key word to some people and I shouldn't have used it. Everyone knows that I support the same position we've had all along. I just meant both sides have to trust us if we're the negotiator. I blame Lieberman for making this an issue, because it's divisive to the Democratic party.

The DNC gambled that if they could get the force authorization passed and off the table, they could make the midterm elections about domestic issues and retake one, if not both houses of Congress. Kerry went along with it, as did a great many other Dems, and it failed.

It was a worthwhile shot, the way I see it. If they took it and won, they got Congress and could check Bush's moves more effectively. Contrarily, if they didn't take it, the measure would pass anyhow, and the Republicans could tar them with the "anti-patriotic" brush for months. Granted, we suspected Iraq would come back to haunt the Reps, but didn't know exactly how badly. But hey, hindsight is 20/20.

Maybe next time the Dems might consider not playing politics with soldiers lives. Syc's right, bipartisanship is fantasy. Their little game rendered the party irrelevent, it's not the Greens that are killing the party, its the Democrats.

Bingo! Right on the money, Griff.

Griff, Republicans play politics with soldiers' lives as easily as Democrats. In a nation where the soldier is ultimately answerable to the civilian, that's their purpose. War is, nor has ever been anything else than, the enforcement of a political agenda through the harshest means. There is no such thing as a "good war", a "necessary war", a "just war", an "honorable war", that's all crap designed to - hey - win at the ballot box.

And if the Dems had won the gambit, you could bet your ass that you would see a flood of legislation choking off any force authorizations that Bush had gotten already - if not stopping the troops from going, then checking their mandate, limiting their tour, any number of things could have happened.

Unless it was politically difficult.

Yeah, right. And just what language do you think we'd be speaking, without it? That's if the masters would allow us to speak at all.
:violin:

I don't know who the hell the Democrats are anymore...for that matter, I don't know who the hell the Republicans are anymore either. It used to be easy to tell them apart, but now...

They are both busy reforming around different issues. It's fascinating!

Uh, English? Or French if you really stopped to think about it. A dialect of Amerindian is possible too, of course.

UT, this is because (if people like me are responding) we don't know if we'll actually go after the enemy, or risk getting our head shot off as we stop in a store for some Skittles in Baghdad. After 9/11, I was all ready to go to Afghanistan if they called on me. I'm not as fervently wanting to go now, but I won't drag out my sheet music to "O Canada" and start practicing as I would for anything else. My family has a long proud tradition of not, you know, being shot. It's fallen to me to continue this tradition as best I can. But al-Qaeda put a multi-square acre hole in the middle of my city, they came damn close to killing my father, my cousin, God only knows how many other members of my family on that day. I have a beef with these people.

But the question is - were I to be called up, would I go against someone who attacked us, or take part in an ego-salve operation because the strongest and skilled army in the world was head-faked by some yutz in a pickup truck and a cell phone on the Afghan-Pakistan border going "Hey, look, a seagull!"