Saturday, December 27, 2003
Boys, Play Nice
It used to be said of nuclear war than when it was over, the living would envy the dead. So it may be in the Democratic presidential race. With a little more than three weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, the serious Democrats are doing their damnedest to destroy each other, and themselves. Whoever emerges from this bloodbath sometime in March or April may end up wishing he was lying on a beach somewhere sipping something with an umbrella and hitting on the waitress.
Start with yesterday, when Howard Dean said it would be wrong to prejudge Osama bin Laden's guilt before trial, if we ever got him. Once again, the words Dean spoke were, taken only as far as their literal meaning, correct. We have a tradition in this country of presuming innocence until guilt is proven, and we have traditionally liked to believe that this presumption applies to the worst criminals, because this presumption is what separates our judicial system from medieval star-chamber courts, and our country from banana republics and totalitarian states, and we have traditionally expected our leaders to uphold this principle. But Osama is not just a mere mortal--he's a symbol of everything evil, and for Dean to suggest that he might be owed the fate of mere mortals is to badly misjudge the apocalyptic temper of the United States at this moment in history. Like Lucifer at the day of judgment, Osama deserves to be shut in the lake of fire for all eternity, or so we believe. Mere human concepts of jurisprudence cannot apply to the devil himself. Today, Dean hastily backtracked while still trying to make the point that he believes in the president's responsibility to defend the legal process--and then contradicted entirely what he said on Friday by saying, "But as an American, I want to make sure he gets the death penalty he deserves."
All this (and much else) has prompted John Kerry to suggest that Dean simply has no chance against Bush. Kerry criticizes Dean for "vacillating isolationism," which is mildly humorous coming from a candidate whose own stand on Iraq--voting for it but ultimately saying he was against it--is textbook vacillation.
Meanwhile, poor old Joe Lieberman reportedly said he would be in favor of revising Roe v. Wade because medical technology has advanced since 1973, but has been furiously spinning a denial since the story broke yesterday. Criticism of his comments sounds to me like close parsing of precise phrases, but the fact remains that here's another Democrat with a muddled message making voters wonder what he stands for.
I have been following the campaign closely since last June or July. I quickly embraced Dean, and he is still my choice as of this moment--despite my deepening concern over his ever-increasing number of gaffes and the way that each one of them points up another critical vulnerability that will be exploited if he gets the nomination. But the tone of the race in the last two or three weeks--the familiar circular firing squad--has me wondering if the Democrats really do need someone to swoop in and save them from themselves. Somebody with a coherent message, somebody who doesn't open his mouth and insert a foot two or three times a week, somebody not instantly dismissable by the pro-Bush media and the average distracted voter. But we'll have to build him (or her) in the lab, because he (or she) doesn't seem to exist.
It used to be said of nuclear war than when it was over, the living would envy the dead. So it may be in the Democratic presidential race. With a little more than three weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, the serious Democrats are doing their damnedest to destroy each other, and themselves. Whoever emerges from this bloodbath sometime in March or April may end up wishing he was lying on a beach somewhere sipping something with an umbrella and hitting on the waitress.
Start with yesterday, when Howard Dean said it would be wrong to prejudge Osama bin Laden's guilt before trial, if we ever got him. Once again, the words Dean spoke were, taken only as far as their literal meaning, correct. We have a tradition in this country of presuming innocence until guilt is proven, and we have traditionally liked to believe that this presumption applies to the worst criminals, because this presumption is what separates our judicial system from medieval star-chamber courts, and our country from banana republics and totalitarian states, and we have traditionally expected our leaders to uphold this principle. But Osama is not just a mere mortal--he's a symbol of everything evil, and for Dean to suggest that he might be owed the fate of mere mortals is to badly misjudge the apocalyptic temper of the United States at this moment in history. Like Lucifer at the day of judgment, Osama deserves to be shut in the lake of fire for all eternity, or so we believe. Mere human concepts of jurisprudence cannot apply to the devil himself. Today, Dean hastily backtracked while still trying to make the point that he believes in the president's responsibility to defend the legal process--and then contradicted entirely what he said on Friday by saying, "But as an American, I want to make sure he gets the death penalty he deserves."
All this (and much else) has prompted John Kerry to suggest that Dean simply has no chance against Bush. Kerry criticizes Dean for "vacillating isolationism," which is mildly humorous coming from a candidate whose own stand on Iraq--voting for it but ultimately saying he was against it--is textbook vacillation.
Meanwhile, poor old Joe Lieberman reportedly said he would be in favor of revising Roe v. Wade because medical technology has advanced since 1973, but has been furiously spinning a denial since the story broke yesterday. Criticism of his comments sounds to me like close parsing of precise phrases, but the fact remains that here's another Democrat with a muddled message making voters wonder what he stands for.
I have been following the campaign closely since last June or July. I quickly embraced Dean, and he is still my choice as of this moment--despite my deepening concern over his ever-increasing number of gaffes and the way that each one of them points up another critical vulnerability that will be exploited if he gets the nomination. But the tone of the race in the last two or three weeks--the familiar circular firing squad--has me wondering if the Democrats really do need someone to swoop in and save them from themselves. Somebody with a coherent message, somebody who doesn't open his mouth and insert a foot two or three times a week, somebody not instantly dismissable by the pro-Bush media and the average distracted voter. But we'll have to build him (or her) in the lab, because he (or she) doesn't seem to exist.
