It would be hard to beat David Brooks’ excellent summary of the different factions among the Democrats when it came to fulfilling this country’s responsibilities to the people of Iraq. But the New York Times editors ask the right questions today:
The candidates also need to tell Americans where they stand on the larger issue of preventive war. The prewar intelligence failures in Iraq and the failure, so far, to find threatening unconventional weapons strike at the basic premises of Mr. Bush’s alarmingly novel strategic doctrines. What alternative ideas do the Democratic contenders have for handling threats like North Korean, and possibly Iranian, nuclear weapons programs and for dealing with countries that give aid and sanctuary to international terrorist groups? And what would they do to keep Afghanistan, the scene of America’s first post-9/11 war, from falling back into chaos with a revived Taliban?
It is in the nature of modern campaigns to offer sound bites rather than substance. But voters have a right to ask for more and to press the Democratic candidates to present real alternatives to Mr. Bush’s policies in Iraq and beyond.
This applies also to the post-war debate about the pre-war. It is relatively easy to criticize the Iraq war, the intelligence behind it, and the post-war reconstruction. It’s another thing to say what you would have done instead. Memories are astonishingly short, but the notion that 9/11 did not and should not have impacted our entire defense doctrines is absurd. How we pro-actively tackle the problem of Islamist terrorism, and the morass of the Middle East from which it comes, is an urgent question. So far, very few of the Democratic leaders (with the honorable exceptions of Lieberman and Gephardt) seem to be prepared to risk a real answer rather than simply another partisan critique. As the election approaches, the need for a credible response to the threats we still face will have to be provided. Or not.
BLANK SLATE RE-WIPED: More evidence of the profound impact of our biological hard-wiring when it comes to gender and sexual identity. And yes, that goes for homosexuality as well. It is every bit as natural as heterosexuality.
The Dish 