It’s odd to watch a debate after reading the transcript first. Some of the lines that seemed pretty clever when written completely bombed. And other lines that I barely noticed in writing were pretty great when spoken:

EDWARDS: Well, here’s what I’d say to voters. What I’m going to do is something dramatically different than this president is doing. Everyone on this stage is against Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, but there’s something more radical than that going on here. What this president is doing is trying to shift the tax burden in America from wealth to work. He wants to eliminate the capital gains tax, the dividends tax, the estate tax, all the taxation of wealth or passive income on wealth, and shift that tax burden to people who work for a living. It’s an enormous mistake. The middle-class working people made this country what it is today. And I would say to Governor Dean and Dick Gephardt, I grew up in a middle-class family whose taxes they’re talking about raising. For a family of four, who makes about $40,000 a year, we’re talking about almost $2,000; $2,000 that could be used to pay a lot of bills. What we ought to be doing instead is empowering those families, helping them buy a house, helping them invest, lowering their capital gains rate. So we improve the–and expand the investor class in America.
. . .
BORGER: Ambassador Moseley Braun, who’s rich and who’s in the middle class?

MOSELEY BRAUN: The economic policies, the trickle-down economics that this administration has given us has created a situation, probably in recent–in our memory, that we’ve never seen before in our memory, of embedded wealth, entrenched poverty and a shrinking middle class. That, it seems to me, is the antithesis, the opposite, of what the American dream is all about. And so, what we are not–we’re not talking about class warfare, which I think is suggested by your question. This is not holding it against someone for doing well. But as people do well, I think they have a responsibility to build community. And that means getting away from an ethos of greed, that we have seen all too much of in recent times, and making certain that the economy works for every American and that opportunity is kept alive in this country.

Great answers from people who have no chance of winning this election.

Speaking of people who won’t win, this answer to the question “What in office, as president, would be the least popular, most right thing you would do?” is one of the most hippy-ass ideas I’ve ever heard :

KUCINICH: I would move to create a Department of Peace which would seek to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our society and to work with the nations of the world to make war itself archaic.

Awwww….who wants a hug?? I’m surprised he didn’t say “I would move to create a ‘Department of Puppies and Ice Cream’ because puppies are cute and ice cream is delicious.”

Ha! A couple years ago, people were claiming that they’d be building cities around this thing. Well, it’s hard to build cities around something if you can’t even buy it anymore :

The maker of the Segway Human Transporter has agreed to recall the motorized scooters because riders have been injured falling off when its batteries are low.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall Friday, saying that three people had been injured. One suffered a head wound and needed stitches.

The recall involves about 6,000 of the single-rider, two-wheeled scooters that can travel up to 12 mph. The scooter uses gyroscopes to keep it upright, making it less likely to fall or be knocked over.

But the CPSC said that scooters being operated with low battery power may not have enough power to remain upright, causing the rider to fall.

And while I have an excuse to repost it, here’s a picture that cracks me up every time I see it:

“So easy to use, that my seven year old son was able to master it within 5 minutes.”
- segwaychat.com

John Kerry has just posted a fundraising letter on his campaign’s site that shows how intolerant the Republican party really is :

wouldn’t be writing this email if what I’ve just seen didn’t anger me beyond words.
I think when you look at these pictures you’ll agree.

Look, I’ve seen some ugly politics in the years since I came home from Vietnam. I’ve been targeted by the Nixon White House - the original masters of dirty tricks. I’ve seen the Willie Hortonization of politics. I’ve been disgusted seeing President Clinton attacked from day one of his presidency by a right wing machine. Most recently my brother in arms Max Cleland who left three limbs on the battlefield of Vietnam had his patriotism questioned by a vengeful and meanspirited GOP that tears people down to advance their agenda.
I decided to run for President to oppose that kind of politics that degrade our democracy and turn good people away from the process.

Now I need you to join me in showing we reject the divisive politics some in the GOP are passing on to a new generation of Republicans.

These t-shirts were displayed and offered for sale at the College Republicans National Convention in Washington. The divisive slogans and graphic pictures are not to be laughed off as campaign rhetoric - they are racist, anti-gay and violent. I support the First Amendment and I am using my right to free speech to protest these products.

But our protest must come in actions not words.

Of course the rest of the letter is “blah, blah…gimme money” kinda stuff, but you really should see these shirts :

“Party of inclusiveness”, my ass.

I knew they would make sure this didn’t die, but I didn’t realize it would be this fast :

With remarkable speed and near unanimity, Congress on Thursday passed legislation intended to ensure consumers can block many unwanted telemarketing calls. But the courts still have the final say about whether the service takes effect as scheduled next week.

The House voted 412-8 and the senate 95-0 for a bill making clear that the Federal Trade Commission has the power to enforce the “do-not-call” list. President Bush said he looked forward to signing the measure.

“Unwanted telemarketing calls are intrusive, annoying and all too common,” he said in a statement. “The millions of people who have signed up for the list have the right to reduce unwanted telephone solicitations.”

So lemme get this straight : We have at least three million people out of work, homeless people dying in the streets, millions of children with no healthcare, underfunded homeland security, a national intelligence system that routinely drops the ball, and hundreds of people dying daily of preventable causes, but the only time both houses of congress can work together is when it’s to block something that’s annoying???

Well, like many of you, I haven’t gotten a chance to see the debate yet. (You’d think something this newsworthy would have an online stream…) Buuuut, I have been keeping my eye on the Washington Post’s running transcript of the debate. Here’s a few highlights that looked good in print :

DEAN : But the biggest issue in this campaign is the question of patriotism and democracy. I am tired of having John Ashcroft and Dick Cheney and Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh lay a claim to patriotism and lay a claim to the American flag. That flag belongs to every single one of us. And I am tired of having our democracy hijacked by the right wing of this country.

Hell yeah! Looks like Dean showed up with his ass kickin’ shoes on. Seriously though, this is a great throwaway line that will energize the hell out of the senate base (which is exactly what he should be doing during the primaries).

Clark impressed me early on with his response to the question about whether to give Bush the $87 billion he requested for Iraq :

CLARK: Well, Brian, if I’ve learned one thing in my nine days in politics,you better be careful with hypothetical questions, and you’ve just asked one. Now, look, this $87 billion is the first we’ve heard from this administration of anything like a reasonable estimate of what the down payment is. Congress needs to really go after this figure. What is the strategy? What will make this operation a success? What will it take to exit? How do we get international support in there? There are dozens of questions to be asked on this.
. . .
And the final answer that we need is, the president needs to tell us how he’s going to pay for it. This can’t be an addition to the deficit. We want to see where the money’s coming from.

First of all, joking about his inexperience was a great idea. It effectively stopped any of the other candidates from criticizing his resume’s lack of political skills.

Even better though was his insistence that Bush be the one to figure out how to afford the $87 billion. Like I said in this post, the Democrats would be much better off handing Bush a copy of the budget and saying “We’re broke. If you need more money, you need to figure out where to get it.”

The always amusing Al Sharpton had a great comment for Clark that not only highlighted Clark’s recent affiliation with the Democratic party, but also had a great, thinly-veiled attack on Lieberman :

SHARPTON: Well, first of all, as the only New Yorker, I want to welcome General Clark to New York and I want to welcome him to our list of candidates. And don’t be defensive about just joining the party. Welcome to the party. It’s better to be a new Democrat that’s a real Democrat, than a lot of old Democrats up here that have been acting like Republicans all along.

Now, it wouldn’t be a debate if it didn’t have an attack on Howard Dean that backfired. Here’s a brief version of John Kerry’s attack on Dean that backfired :

KERRY: We Democrats fought hard to put those tax cuts in place, Ron. Those represent the efforts of Democrats to try to reach the middle class of America. The 10 percent bracket wasn’t George Bush’s idea. It was our idea…I think Governor Dean is absolutely wrong. And he’s wrong on his facts.
. . .
DEAN: That is not a tax cut. Whatever you got out there in tax cuts, the majority of Americans saw their kids’ college tuition go up, their property taxes go up
. . .
GEPHARDT: I don’t agree with John. I think that’s the wrong policy, and let me tell you why. This plan has failed. The president’s economic plan has failed. And we should not keep half of a failure or a quarter of a failure or two-thirds of a failure. If it’s failed, let’s change the policy. Let’s do something else.

I dunno how this played out on TV, but on the web it seemed pretty stinging. It’s one thing to effectively defend yourself the way Dean did, but to have Gephardt’s answer not only back up Dean, but mention Kerry by name, seems to pretty much negate any positive impact that Kerry’s remarks might have made.

Sharpton also had a good point by pointing out that Bush’s “tax cuts” were essentially a tax hike

SHARPTON: Well, I think that, clearly, rich are those that are above a certain income bracket that are able to, without any concern, pay for their livelihood and their family. I think what we’re hearing here, though, is something that is particularly disturbing to me. I think that we’re not talking tax cuts, we’re talking tax shifts. And what President Bush has offered and some are supporting, is to give us $300 at the end of the day, when we bring about an economy where interest rates go too high, where mortgage lending can’t happen for people right here in Queens. My two daughters are here tonight. Would I rather give them $300 that, if they buy a pair of sneakers apiece, the $300 is gone, or would I rather them be able to buy a home and have interest rates where they can have a home mortgage? If you talk to the American people like that, they will understand the fallacy of that. And that’s not about reading lips, because we’ve read Bush’s lips; they lied. He said that there are no tax cuts, yet he caused a shift where state tax, sale tax and property taxes went up. That’s a tax hike where I come from.

Let me add that $300 for two pairs of shoes is insane. I could buy fifteen pairs of the shoes I’m wearing now for that amount of money.

When the subject turned to healthcare, Dean had a good “attack that’s not really an attack” on the other candidates that both touted his successes in Vermont while at the same time cementing his “Washington outsider” status :

DEAN: In all due respects to all the candidates here, any of whom would be better than George Bush as president, these folks have been in Washington a long time and talked about health insurance for a long time, and we have very little to show for it. In my state, 99 percent of the kids that are eligible for health insurance who are under 18, 96 percent have it. Everybody under 150 percent of poverty, all our working poor people, have health insurance. And a lot of seniors have prescription benefits. This does need to be a system that’s built on what we have. We’ve done that in Vermont. I’d like the opportunity to do that for the whole country.

While Clark seemed to do pretty damn good for his first debate, I was amused (and a little shocked) by this :

INSANA: Senator Graham has referred to the stock market as a–simply as a lottery. Do

you share that view, or do you find an appropriate role for stock market investments

in the Social Security retirement program?

CLARK: George Bush said that he would protect Social Security, but all he’s done is present tax cuts. His tax cuts total three times the amount of money needed to make the Social Security system solvent for the next 75 years. I’m a believer in Social Security. I think you need to protect that system, I think you need to put the resources into it, I think you need to assure that it’s solvent. And I’ll tell you why. First, it’s right. It’s right because when people work in this country, the wealthiest country in the world, they have a right to be assured that in their elderly years they will have a minimum standard of income. Secondly, I think it’s good business practice, because in the economy we’re facing in the future, we want people to move between jobs and job, we want people to move between skill and skill. We want them to have retirement security, so they can take a chance. For both reasons, we need to sustain Social Security.

WILLIAMS: Ron, I’ll give you an extra 30. Did you get the answer you wanted?

INSANA: Not at all.

Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a debate moderator come right out and confront someone for not answering a question. Is there any way we can sign these guys up in advance to moderate the 2004 debates?

The other day I predicted that the candidates would gang up on Clark, since he’s jumped to the head of the pack since his announcement last week. Not only was I completely wrong, but the attacks on Dean were more fierce than ever :

GEPHARDT: Howard and I just have a basic disagreement. He said in, I think, 1993 that Medicare was the worst federal program ever. He said that it was the worst thing that ever happened. He also supported, at our darkest hour–when I was leading the fight against Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America, he was shutting the government down–Howard, you were agreeing with the very plan that Newt Gingrich wanted to pass, which was a $270 billion cut in Medicare. Now, you’ve been saying for many months that you’re the head of the senate wing of the Democratic party. I think you’re just winging it. This is not the view of Democrats, in my view. This program has been under attack from the Republicans since the beginning. And we need a candidate against George Bush that can take the fight to him on it, not someone who agreed with the Gingrich Republicans.

WILLIAMS: Governor Dean?

DEAN: That is flat-out false, and I’m ashamed that you would compare me with Newt Gingrich. Nobody up here deserves to be compared to Newt Gingrich. First of all, I did say that Medicare was a dreadful program because it’s administered dreadfully. I’ve done more for health insurance, Dick Gephardt, frankly, than you ever have, because I’ve delivered it to a lot of seniors and a lot of young people. And I’ll stake my record on health insurance against anybody up here. Of course, we’re not going to get rid of Medicare, and you are wrong to insinuate so, but we’re going to run it properly because we’re going to have somebody that actually is taking care of patients running Medicare and Medicaid in the FDA so we can get the things that we need to get to patients. To insinuate that I would get rid of Medicare is wrong, it’s not helpful, and we need to remember that the enemy here is George Bush, not each other.

Like in the other debates, Dean was able to fight back and defend himself while still appearing to be above the fray.

Perhaps the weirdest moment of the debates was this quote from John Kerry. While I was reading it I couldn’t stop thinking “Huh? John Kerry said this? Senator John Kerry?”

KERRY: We only have 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves, Gerry. There is no physical or metaphysical way for the United States of America to drill its way out of this problem. We have to invent our way out of this problem. And the sooner that we have a president who understands that and begins to commit America to the science, the discovery, to the alternatives, to the renewables, to begin to press America toward the great journey toward energy independence, the better off America will be, the better our health will be, the more effective our economy would be and, frankly, the better our national security will be and the better world citizen we will be.

At least as far as the transcript is concerned, it seemed like a pretty solid debate. If I have any further thoughts after watching my tape of it tonight, I’ll make sure to share them with you…

I hope Arianna had some flowers waiting for her this morning, because she did all the dirty work for Bustamante and McClintock. By continuously attacking Schwarzenegger, she left the other two major candidates free to discuss the issues and keep their hands clean. Here was my favorite exchange of the evening :

Huffington: Your analysis fits perfectly the Bush administration in Washington

Schwarzenegger: If you want to campaign against Bush, go to New Hampshire. It’s the proper place for you. You’re in the wrong state right now

Huffington: The people of California need somebody who is going to fight the Bush administration for them There’s a huge connection between our budgetary problems here and the decisions made in Washington It’s completely hypocritical of Arnold (Schwarzenegger starts to interrupt.) Let me finish. Let me finish. This is completely impolite, the way you treat women. We know that

Schwarzenegger: I would just like to say that I just realized that I have a perfect part for you in “Terminator 4.”

Ahhh…a reference to Arnold’s infamous boast about shoving a woman’s head into a toilet bowl. How hilarious! With a sense of humor that sharp, Arnold should feel right at home with fellow Republicans Bill “I woulda put a bullet right between his head” O’Reilly and Ann “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building” Coulter.

Declaring a winner in something like a debate is a little tricky. If there was a winner, I think it would be a tossup between Camejo and McClintock, since they were both able to calmly explain their positions and keep themselves out of the fighting that marked the entire debate. On the other end of the spectrum, Arnold’s performance was the kind of meaningless pandering I haven’t seen in a debate since George W. Bush in 2000. Based on this CNN poll, it looks like my views aren’t indicative of those of the general public :

Is the rest of the world smoking crack or did I just see a different debate? I suspect that Arnold set everyone’s expectations so low that his ability to form simple sentences like “You guys have an addiction problem. You should go to an addiction place.” was enough to impress people into voting for him.

The real shame is that Bustamante, who’s naturally a soft-spoken and slow speaker, has been labeled condescending and pandering. I don’t think this is necessarily the case, but if 54% of Californians think Arnold won last night’s debate, then maybe they do need to be treated like children.

When discussing the ongoing search of Iraqi WMD’s on Meet the Press a couple weeks ago, Colin Powell, the most credible member of the Bush Administration, had this to say (quote from TalkingPointsMemo)

David Kay is in charge of our effort now, with some 1,500 inspectors and analysts and experts. He will provide an interim report later this month, and I am confident when people see what David Kay puts forward they will see that there was no question that such weapons exist, existed, and so did the programs to develop one.

Man, that Kay report must have some pretty damning evidence in it. I’m sure when it comes out, all of us on the left are gonna feel pretty stupid. Oh wait…

No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq by the group tasked with looking for them, according to a Bush administration source who has spoken to the BBC.

The source told the presenter of BBC television’s Daily Politics show, Andrew Neil, this was the conclusion of the Iraq Survey Group’s interim report, which the source said was due to be published next month.

Mr Neil said the draft report says it was highly unlikely that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were shipped out of the country to places like Syria before the US-led war on Iraq.

So Colin Powell has shown us that being the most credible member of the Bush Administration is about as prestigious as being the world’s tallest midget. (yeah, I stole that line…)

Here’s what the heartless son-of-a bitch said in his State of the Union speech :

Today, on the continent of Africa, nearly 30 million people have the AIDS virus — including 3 million children under the age 15. There are whole countries in Africa where more than one-third of the adult population carries the infection. More than 4 million require immediate drug treatment. Yet across that continent, only 50,000 AIDS victims — only 50,000 — are receiving the medicine they need.

Because the AIDS diagnosis is considered a death sentence, many do not seek treatment. Almost all who do are turned away. A doctor in rural South Africa describes his frustration. He says, “We have no medicines. Many hospitals tell people, you’ve got AIDS, we can’t help you. Go home and die.” In an age of miraculous medicines, no person should have to hear those words.

But like every other Bush policy, his African AIDS policy is just another Trojan horse used to sneak a radical right-wing agenda past American voters. In this case, he’s so intent on promoting abstinence education and stopping clinics from even mentioning abortion, that he’s willing to cut off all funding to those who disagree with him. The predictable result is that a lot of people are now having to go without any health care :

President Bush’s anti-abortion policy has forced family planning clinics in poor countries to close, leaving some communities without any healthcare, according to a report issued Wednesday.

Even faith-based clinics that promote abstinence — in line with White House policy — have had to close, according to organizers.

Under the policy, known as the Mexico City rule by supporters and the Global Gag rule by opponents, foreign family planning agencies cannot receive U.S. funds if they provide abortion services or lobby to make or keep abortion legal in their own country.

A survey of Ethiopia, Kenya, Romania and Zambia by Population Action International and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America showed the rule had forced clinics to close and left many men and women without access to contraceptives that could prevent both unwanted pregnancies and AIDS.

“You cannot separate HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and abortion,” said Hillary Fyfe, who heads the Family Life Movement of Zambia, a faith-based group working with adolescents on sex education.

While her group does not promote abortion or even condom use, it does talk about the possibility, and that was enough to lose U.S. funding, Fyfe said. Three clinics in Lusaka closed this year.
. . .
As one of his first acts in office in 2001, Bush reinstated the rule that former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, had lifted. The rule was originally imposed in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan at a Mexico City conference.

Last month Bush ordered the State Department to strengthen the rule by withholding U.S. family planning help from overseas groups that promote or perform abortions with their own money.

Five family planning clinics run by nongovernmental organizations have closed in Kenya because they refused the restrictions and lost funding from the U.S. Agency for International development, the report said.

“As a result, they are prevented from participating in a large-scale integrated health care program funder by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which curtails the effectiveness and reach of the program,” the report reads.

In Kenya’s Mathare Valley, a family planning clinic closed, leaving 300,000 people with no healthcare services. “And there is no other family planning or reproductive health clinic nearby,” the report said.

In Romania, women may be more likely to get abortions, not fewer, because the rule has meant more women cannot get any information on contraceptives that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, the report said.

“This is the real face of Bush’s compassionate conservatism — a war on the world’s most vulnerable women and children, who bear the brunt of Bush’s obsession with appeasing his domestic political base,” Planned Parenthood’s Gloria Feldt said in a statement.

I can understand that Bush feels strongly about abortion, but forcing the closures of clinics who disagree with him is cruel and unnecessary. The biggest irony here is that the gag rule doesn’t even work :

The Global Gag Rule restrictions were purportedly designed to reduce abortion by limiting a woman?s access to abortion services, and to ensure that U.S. funding for family planning services overseas is completely separate from abortion activities. When the policy was previously in effect, however, from 1984 to 1992, there was no evidence that the policy reduced the incidence of abortion, as women continued to seek clandestine procedures. There is little reason to believe it will be any more effective this time around. In practice, the policy is likely to have the opposite effect: it will reduce access to contraception, leading to more unwanted and high-risk pregnancies, more unsafe abortions, and more maternal illness, injury, and even death.

I wonder how many people are going to have to die every year because George Bush his scientifically-unsound policies ahead of the ultimate goal of saving as many lives as possible?

Via Atrios, I see that there’s a new trend in fried foods that sounds pretty repulsive :

Looking to emulate the success of Chicken McNuggets and fried mozzarella sticks, the group is hoping to inject some red meat into the American snack food diet with cheeseburger fries. The fries, which look like a squat version of standard French fries, are made of a meat-and-cheese compound that tastes ? as the name suggests ? like a cheeseburger.

Breaded, then deep-fried and served with ketchup or barbecue sauce, cheeseburger fries have found their way onto menus in several states including Nebraska, Minnesota and Texas since June. There is also a version being made available to public school cafeterias.

“The challenge is getting people to think of other ways to eat beef,” said Betty Hogan, director of new product development for the [National Cattlemen’s Beef Association].

Let me go down on record as saying “Ewwwwwww!”. Cheeseburger fries??? This whole deep frying everything fad is retarded. What’s next, people eating a tub of salted butter (with a side of bacon and ranch dressing)?

Overall, I still think Americans (in their own lazy, unwilling to sacrifice in at all sort of way) want to eat healthier. McDonald, despite being a repeat offender health-wise, has made a few steps recently to provide more healthy choices to their customers. In the past year, they introduced a new veggie burger, some restaurants are offering a free one-week gym membership with the purchase of a salad, and now they’re test marketing an adult version of their popular Happy Meal

McDonald’s Corp. has enlisted the aid of Oprah Winfrey’s personal trainer Bob Greene to promote an adult version of the Happy Meal, the fast-food giant’s latest effort to offer healthier products.

Instead of Happy Meal standards like a burger and a toy, the new Go Active meal will include a salad, an exercise booklet and a pedometer meant to encourage walking.

Fitness guru BGreene has agreed to help promote the Go Active Meal, which is being test-marketed at 150 McDonald’s restaurants in Indiana.

McDonald’s and other fast-food chains have tried to offer healthier fare that will still temp tastebuds as the fat and calorie content of their core products has come under scrutiny. Burger King, the No. 2 hamburger chain, planned to launch a new line of low-fat, baguette-style chicken sandwiches on Thursday.

Granted, McDonald’s is probably doing this as much to fend of any future obesity-related lawsuits (which are bullshit, by the way), but it’s a good sign that they’re taking health concerns seriously.

What the future holds for healthy foods is ultimately up to consumers, not fast food restaurants. If the McDonald’s healthy menu items don’t make any money, then they’re gone. I just hope if the ironically-named “Go Active Meal” becomes popular, they replace the pedometer with these :

On a slightly related note, on Sunday I went to the L.A. County fair and made it my mission to try the one piece of nouveau white-trash cuisine that’s piqued my curiosity : a deep-fried Snickers bar. I was expecting something crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside that was so sweet that it would send me into a diabetic shock after two bites. Instead, I got a candy bar in a straightened donut. It wasn’t bad per se, it was just stupid.

Seriously. I don’t know much about the guy at all. I know he’s a retired general who’s friends with the Clintons and is supposed to be anti-war. That’s about it. I don’t know where he stands on heath care, tax cuts, the PATRIOT Act, etc…

I think the fact that he’s pretty much a blank slate is the reason we’re already seeing news like this :

Democrat Wesley Clark, in the presidential race for less than a week, is tied with President Bush in a head-to-head matchup, according to a poll that shows several senate candidates strongly challenging the Republican incumbent.

Clark, a retired Army general, garnered 49 percent support to Bush’s 46 percent, which is essentially a tie given the poll’s margin of error. The CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll was conducted Sept. 19-21, beginning two days after Clark announced he would become the 10th senate candidate for the party’s nomination.

Polling numbers aside, Clark is completely untested as a candidate. His first test will be tomorrow night when he goes against the other nine presidential candidates in the third major senate debate. Based on this article from last week’s New York Times, I doubt he’ll be blowing away the rest of the competition :

General Clark said that he would have advised members of Congress to support the authorization of war but that he thought it should have had a provision requiring President Bush to return to Congress before actually invading. Democrats sought that provision without success.

“At the time, I probably would have voted for it, but I think that’s too simple a question,” General Clark said.

A moment later, he said: “I don’t know if I would have or not. I’ve said it both ways because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position ? on balance, I probably would have voted for it.”
. . .
The general’s remarks in a free-rolling 90-minute airborne interview suggested the extent of the adjustment he faces in becoming a presidential candidate.

“Mary, help!” he called to his press secretary, Mary Jacoby, at the front of the plane, as he faced questions about Iraq. “Come back and listen to this.”

At one point, Ms. Jacoby interrupted the interview, which included four reporters who were traveling on the general’s jet, to make certain that General Clark’s views on the original Iraq resolution were clear.

“I want to clarify ? we’re moving quickly here,” Ms. Jacoby said. “You said you would have voted for the resolution as leverage for a U.N.-based solution.”

“Right,” General Clark responded. “Exactly.”

A lot of people have tried to claim that Clark has flip-flopped in his position on the war or that he was never really anti-war. Clark’s problem isn’t that he does or doesn’t support the war, it’s that he can’t articulate his positions on the war. This is the same dilemma that John Kerry has been going through, trying to criticize the president’s handling of Iraq while defending his vote on the Iraq resolution.

We’ll see how well Clark can define himself tomorrow night. It’ll also be interesting to see how the rest of the candidates react to his entry. I suspect Kerry will keep his mouth shut, while Lieberman will change his “attack the front runner” strategy from attacks on Dean to attacks on Clark, Dean will keep with his strategy of not attacking any candidates directly, and Kucinich will keep saying things so reactionary that he’ll never in a million years be president.